AGS writes:
But if the map was inside your app then wall creators could easely move their wall to the desired location even with a 2g phone.
I’ve brainstormed with a friend, and we came up with an idea very similar to what you proposed. I’ll discuss it in greater detail once its fleshed out.
Ross writes:
…I also think being able to see a wall across the country would be great if that’s even possible.
I don’t think this will be happening soon. To me, Graffitio is about exploration and discovery. You will have to be there. I may create a Google Maps mashup which just displays pinpoints wherever there is a wall, but you can’t see it’s name or the posts on it
kimonostereo writes:
Also would love to have a link that maps the actual location of the wall.
A detail view for walls is a planned feature that will include a link to open Maps at that location.
kreddig writes:
Maps Maps Maps!!!
There’s a lot of demand for Maps integrated into the application. I’m hesitant to pursue that now for two reasons. 1) I am after the most streamlined user experience possible. You just open the application and see exactly what you need to see. Details are one tap away. Maps involve a lot of dragging, pinching, tapping, etc. As we’ve seen in many current apps, it slows down user interaction tremendously. 2) Map functionality is an order of magnitude more difficult to implement than anything textual. I’d rather deliver much needed features as text first and then think about putting them on a map.
classic writes:
A truly elegant solution, as long as:
1) You can post anonymously at any time.
2) You can only vote a post up or down once [to prevent repeated voting].
3) You cannot vote on your own posts.
I don’t want to penalize users for registering, so allowing them to post anonymous comments is something I’d like to do. I also believe there should be a penalty associated with it. Either a lower starting score, as you mentioned Slashdot does, or maybe you lose the ability to rate other posts on that wall. We are in agreement on points 2 and 3.
Ali writes:
I’ve read the information about radii of Walls, etc… but was wondering if there would be a way to define different levels of Wall with different radii.
This is a tough problem. One one hand, I’d like Graffitio to get to a point where you’re really only looking at walls within walking distance. On the other hand, it’s a newborn, and users are frustrated when they open it up and see nothing. I have two potential solutions to this brewing in my head. More on it later.
Cville Bill writes:
Thinking down the road a bit…
You might want to start thinking about Wall obsolescence. There probably should be a group way to remove obsolete walls.
Oh, I’m thinking about it! It plagues me. (Although, it’s one of those “good problems”). I don’t like to throw away data, but there needs to be some sort of aging mechanism. There’s a field in Massachusetts that I may create a wall on and leave a note about my first kiss. Nobody cares about that except me, but it’s so important to me. I’ll probably come up with a way for users to access all of their posts in some standard format. It may not be accessible from the device, but it’s not gone forever.
Looking deep into the future, maybe as our devices become even more powerful and connections become faster, we can scrub across a timeline and watch the wall go back in time. Wow, I’m drooling. How awesome would it be to go to a venue and scrub back to a concert you went to ten years ago and read its wall?
Another factor to consider besides distance and activity is your attention. If you’ve posted to a wall ten times, you probably always want to see it, while others do not. As the database grows, the walls you see can be tailored to what you pay attention to.
JonO writes:
Using a wall at a concert? Dude, it’s around places. Places. Who makes a wall for a concert? Make the wall for the concert hall. Then friends can exchange messages during their concert and a period of time later, some other fans of some other band can do their thing. The wall persists, the bands and fans change.
JonO gets it.
Chris S. writes:
After this new version goes live, bugs are squashed, I would love to get on a beta test for painting-type addition to this app =] Maybe paint our own avatars?
Sorry Chris, but actually painting won’t happen from inside Graffitio. Now photos on the other hand… stay tuned. Of course, that will mean you can use a dedicated app like Sketches, save the drawing to your camera roll, and then stick it on a wall in Graffitio. This way, Sketches and Graffitio each do they do best. A Jack of all trades is a master of none.
I’d much prefer this service to be nameless, faceless wisps of smoke, which appear and disappear with impunity.
…
One other nice feature of having logins, though, would be to have a little indicator on walls which shows when there are new posts that you haven’t seen.
Namelessness will always be an option. A wall update indicator should actually be possible for both registered and unregistered users.
Lestatdelc writes:
So no matter where I am in my city, I have the “city” in-wall, “region” in-wall, and “state” in-wall and only allow the “infinite” posting to those 5 various “infinite” walls that are to me by my location?
Are you a mind reader? :)
awsome. Thanks!
I just hope that when you do make fixes, updates, and add new features, that it doesn’t get to be so much and really cluttered and crammed. But I really do love Graffitio!! :)
I second CW. This program is “the little engine that could.” it’s chugging along to success because it is a simple streamlined interface to a GREAT idea. As long as these updates don’t block the path to the original great idea, this app will go right over the top.
Will there be a way to see similar walls so users know where else they might like to visit?
Like if I am writing on a wall at a camera store about how pricey it is.. Then I could also search for ‘fringe’ walls out of range that are also at camera shops and see if anyone has remarked better things about another store ..
If maps make it in then these toys of ours will give us directions to where other similar walls of interest are located.. Still exploring but also hunting/scavenging.
im late to this party in some respects. i just downloaded the app the other day and have explored it over the past few days. i love it. especially the overall concept. i read through most of this blog so hopefully these comments wont overlap too much, sorry if it does.
1. love the registration solution. the ability for the committed community to vote up or down posts is great. saves you time that might otherwise have to be spent ‘monitoring’ things yourself. despite this however… i’d kill the infinite wall. instead…
2. show the closest 10 or so walls, regardless of how close you are to them. if they are past the 1000 meter distance, they are greyed out and you cant view or post to them, but at least users know they are out there. once walls are within the 1000 meter threshold, posts turn into black text and become postable.
3. question: how about the actual walls themselves? should these be voteable up or down as well? do you need to be registered to make a new wall? i can see possible abuse of the wall naming feature when other options go away.
4. what about all of these misplaced walls out there? it kills me to have all of this misplaced data floating around. until today when i figured out that i needed to go to maps and force my current location before i make and find walls, ive been placing walss in lots of wrong locations. others have as well. i’ve found walls 100+ miles from where they should be. to me, this defeats (and confuses) the point. to me, as much as i hate it, i think once r2 comes out with the improved location function, the existing walls should be wiped out and start from scratch. its still early enough in the game to do so i think. but there might be another way that i cant think of right now.
5. the abilty to exactly position walls via a map is an interesting idea. as long as it doesn’t complicate things too much. i do love the simplicity of it all. the thing about maps though, they open up a lot of other possibilities that could bring the ideal concept closer to a reality.
6. next we just need to fix apples update process.
sorry this was so long. for some reason this concept really struck a chord with me. if you ever want some help brainstorming/concepting future features/uses please email me. i’d love to help.
Ok Anoopr, I do agree with you. Being able to see that there is a wall somewhere beyond your reach would make it fun to travel to these different spots and see what’s going on instead of just sitting in your living room in new york and posting on californias walls. This, however, is why walls will need a ranking system of some sort. The only reason I say this is because I am able to pick up about ten walls now in my area but nothing of importance is on any of them. So it would suck if you’re the person traveling to see these walls, only to find out it’s a waist of time. The only problem is, who should have the right to deem a message unimportant? Graffiti in it’s true definition is an expression. What’s important or relevant to me might not mean that much to someone else. So that person might mark down my message because they disagree with my stance or they just flat out don’t like me. I don’t know if I’m really explaining that right but in my head I know what I’m trying to say lol. Either way Anoopr, u have an awesome little app here, and I can’t wait to see what u bring us in the future. Thanks again!
P.S. I don’t know if I used this email with the first post but this is the Ross you referred to in the blog.
Im really excited about the map features your coming up with. I agree that the app should be quite simple and streamlined and thats why i really hope that screen names are not used or avatars either. I just want to open up the app, find some walls close by (with a new map feature) and peak in and out of what’s near me. I know that some are worried about excess data floating out there and but im sure people will be quite clever and precise with their wall names so people can skip through the clutter to find what’s interesting or important to them. In addition i just think that anonymity is very important!
I also just wanted to share my disapointment with recent path that the app seems to be going. The app is turning into a chat room of recent and im sure it will fade as the culprits will find other apps more geared towards INTENSE conversation, but its really hard to use the app for what I think it should be used for since endless conversations end up drowning out random positive posts. So i was thinking you could put up a mission statement for what Graffitio is generally for at the top of the infinite wall, because lets face it not everyone is coming to the blog!
Thanks for listening……
I think perhaps some device detection should alleviate the wall location problem. Walls created by those of us with V1 iPhones could have a “confirm location” button available to those with 3G iPhones and can “see” the wall location.