Thank you so much for all your feedback! I thought I’d take a second to respond to your comments:
One wonders if there could be user control over the radius, rather than something set by admin.
These are just three of dozens of comments I’ve received on this issue. Honestly, there is no right answer that will please all the people all the time. For people in NYC or SF, a small radius is much more desirable. At the same time, I don’t want someone in rural Missouri to open up Graffitio and see nothing. Using the radius provided by your iPhone is a good way to correct for this. In densely populated areas, it’s usually much smaller than in rural areas where people are only picking up EDGE.
TAClark’s comment makes the most sense to me, and I think I will probably implement it on the back end today. Walls get sorted by distance from you and you only get the top 25 within 1000m. In NYC, you only see the 25 closest walls, which are more than likely really close to you. Here in Charlottesville, I’d probably get stretched out to the full 1000m and still only come up with a half dozen walls.
Many of you want to set the radius yourself. I’m torn about this. Over time, I want the radius to keep getting smaller. I started with a base radius of 1000m because I simply did not expect the application to become so popular, and I wanted people to at least be able to see a few things when they opened it. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that is no longer an issue! One of the biggest reasons I’m torn about adding a radius preference is because features are a one-way street. Until we have a really good solution, I’m holding off on the preference.
And on a similar note, AkuKnives and I really share a vision for Graffitio:
I don’t know, I myself kinda of like the idea of 10 meters. When I envisioned what this app would be like, I romanticized of treasure hunts. Leaving clues to treasure hidden on walls that people could only see at very very exact locations. I imagined all the fun I would have trying to hunt to find cool little secrets that I would have to be very close to in order to find.
To me, Graffitio is about discovery. I envision invisible time capsules scattered all over the earth waiting to be unlocked by anyone walking by. In a perfect world (for Graffitio), we’d all have an iPhone 3G and this wouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. One idea I had is being able to flag a wall as “Pinpoint” or “Local” when you create it. Only an iPhone 3G would be able to create and access Pinpoint walls and you’d have to be standing pretty much on top of it to see it. Of course, I still have an old iPhone so this would make me sad (but also give me a good reason to get a 3G!). How do all of you feel about this?
I love the idea of setting ranges for your walls - pinpoint (GPS specific)/near (say 100m)/general (iPhone range). For people in major metropolitan areas (especially those who dig urban exploration), it’s a great way to use the app.
I downloaded this app solely because I recognized the main screenshot as being Charlottesville (”Revolutionary Soup? John Grisham? Hey! I know that place”), and then it totally caught my imagination. Especially I like that it’s a low-bandwith, fast, location-based app, unlike all those cluttered maps.
But as someone who still inhabits college towns like Cville, I don’t want a very tight radius. I vote for the big radius sorted in order of distance, showing top 25 (that might even let you expand the 1000m limit to enhance it for those in rural areas–think hikers: a wall at the top of a mountain might reflect both the tiring journey and then the fun of arriving and seeing the view). The idea of a Pinpoint wall sounds neat—but I suspect I’d never ever stumble on one, and I think Graffitio will have the same feeling of a treasure hunt and discovery even with the big radius. Finding a wall is going to be a thrill and a cool little secret regardless.
If the user base gets HUGE, and there are just too many walls, then consider enabling Pinpoint, but try to make it difficult for people to make something like Revolutionary Soup in Cville a Pinpoint wall without realizing it. Maybe only show the option if Graffitio is already showing 25 walls within 100m.
I predict this is going to catch on regardless, so it’s a tough call. It’d be nice to get some more concrete preference data before implementing features–it seems to me like the 37signals advice is good stuff, but couldn’t some of that pain be alleviated with data?
As an urban explorer and gamer I also share this vision of treasure hunting. Thus a tight focus is going to reward us. So the line of questions I would like to consider is starting to evolve:
a) how many of the current user base shares this vision? (i.e., tighter radii=more fun/better. put it however you like)
b) will this feature transmit that vision to current users who are neutral at this time or hadn’t thought of it as an outcome of the app?
c) will this feature cause new users to join who otherwise wouldn’t have?
d) will this feature prevent more users than it promotes?
Parallel to that is the feature you’ve proposed: sort by distance
How much time/experimentation and data do we need to determine if this feature covers the needs, obviating the radius preference?
Finally, removing my Mr. Objective Get Me Data hat: I believe I really would love to set my own pref and/or create pinpoint walls. I mean, how cool is that?? Ooh I can’t even see all the games I’d play :-D
It would be good if you could make a wall pinpoint, but it would be rubbish if they all were. Perhaps to stop accedental ones maybe have it that you have to put *pin* or somthing infrount of the wall name. I don’t know if that would be possible though, but it would stop them being made accesently anyway.
P<<
I am an original iPhone user. When I downloaded this app I had in my mind more precise radii. Reading about the limitations of the original iPhone to make accurate location pinpoints makes me lean towards the suggestion of listing the walls in order of closest 25, but only because of fear of losing the use of this revolutionary app. In my view, this app has the potential to help fuse the physical world that we live in with the limitless information and convienence of the Internet. This would obviously be more useful with accurate location data. If the radii sort by distance we will benifit as well. Street numbers could be included in store names to help with location to help in urban settings. I am a big fan of exact location, but it would be unlikely that this as a sole means of opperation would benifit those in rural locations. If exact locations were initially looked for but secondarily sorted approximately, we may be able to find harmony. I have no idea if this is possible. Even if I lose the ability to use this app, I think a more precise radii than currently implemented (or sorting) is a clear cry, no, a demand from our future. I am happy to have seen this, a turning point in the way we will interpret and interact with universe.
I love the idea of being able to manually set the radii. I was out today and I didn’t see any walls, I guess there aren’t many users in this area yet. I was wondering if there was a way to expand my range and see what lay further away, but there was nothing. It was slightly frustrating. I can understand your comment about wanting to keep it local but there should be a way to expand your range. It may not be inline with what the original vision was for the program, but it only seems natural that users have the ability to either set the radius of their wall when they create it or set the radius of their client so they can find walls that are further away.
My second comment is off topic, but I feel it needs to be addressed. The infinite wall is full of garbage, I don’t really care anymore because I won’t bother to read it again. However, I think it gives an extremely poor first impression to new users. There needs to be an abuse button to report posts or a universal abuse wall or e-mail for addressing inappropriate posts. You said you have the ability to ban individual devices. I think it has come to that point…
I first would like to address FirebornX’s comment about the infinite wall. I personally would much MUCH rather see it go away than have to worry about the implementation of abuse buttons and reports. I think that would be a huge waste of time to deal with and would most certainly cut into the time that can be spent improving this app. The same thing goes for having handles and avatars. People can sign their names if they really want others to know who they are, but I don’t see this app (nor do I want it to) becoming a mobile forum. Graffitio’s most fundamental beauty is its simplistic nature, and I think it should surely be kept that way.
I will admit that I do live in New York City, and to be more specific, midtown Manhattan. Things here are small, on a given city block there can be 10 stores side by side from each other if not more, all of which have a store width of about 20 feet and sometimes less. Doing the math, 1 city block is about 80 meters. So I’m sure anyone can imagine my frustration when my wall meant to comment on the awesome sausage pizza at Francisco’s Pizza on 68th street is being read nearly 13 blocks away. Especially seeing how in that radius, there could be 3 more Francisco’s Pizza shops that have nothing to do with the one I’m referring to. While some people might like the idea of using Graffitio for advertisement as a virtual tractor beam towards fun things, I was always more fond of keeping secret gems like that, well…. secret. But if you discover Francisco’s on your own, I’d more than gladly recommend you the best thing on the menu.
Going back to the idea of using Graffitio in a treasure map sense, I dunno, I feel like it’s cheating to be able to see my wall about a specific location or thing, if you’re not right there in front of it. It would be like Anoopr just going in and reading every single wall ever created on Graffitio. Sure he CAN, sure he could find out some really interesting information on people and different places, but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? Isn’t that what makes it different from just being an online forum with different threads based on location? That you HAVE to be able to go to a specific place and get pretty close to see what is written?
Sure I’m slightly bias because I live in a densely populated area, but I certainly understand those in more rural areas. It would really suck if the only walls you ever saw were your own. Which is why I’m not sure if there can a 100% crowd pleasing solution. But I do think the closest that you can come to that is by allowing people to set radius options. Allow wall creators to determine their own wall radius, or allow people to set their detection radius, or both! But just being able to see walls that are really far away from me, even if they’re at the bottom of a list, will still ruin the experience for me. Sorry for all the would-be preaching, but that’s just my 2 cents.
I agree with AkuKnives - even though I have an iPhone V1, and my location may not be the most accurate, the whole point of the application is to see the walls around you, as if people were actually writing on the walls.
I think the radius option when creating a wall would be the best, but within reason. Setting a radius of 2 meters in NYC would make your wall nearly impossible to see by chance.
But then, creating a wall for an entire city (or neighborhood) would be possible - kind of like a “local” infinity wall, such as a Harlem or SoHo wall, in NYC.
I was, and am still very excited about this app. I want to weigh in and strongly recommend a smaller radius. And i say this as a resident of a very small town in the mountains of Oregon.
Someone mentioned earlier, about climbing a mountain and creating a wall at the peak- 1000m or yards away? No way!! Id want someone to have to be much closer to be able to share/contribute to the wall.
Live somewhere remote? Why do you need to set up a 1000 radius wall, for some vast swath of land? Do you need to set wall for the whole cornfield, or the house at one corner? Do I need to set a wall for a whole hillside or ski area, or the peak or a special cliff?
My point is, setting a smaller radius, keeps the special feeling of discovery. And if you are in a remote area, it just increases the reward for you upon travelling and finding new walls, OR, seeing a post on your own little special wall.
Coming hypocritically from an EDGE user. -I say 100 or 10 yards/meters, but no less. I think 10m is “pinpoint” enough
I really like the idea of creating a wall with a user defined radius. That way you could still have the treasure map experience, and more public walls to keep everyone happy.