I looked at some of the mashups, but I'm not sure I found the good ones. I tried the popular Earthquake link, and it made my computer snag as well as trying to bring me a virus (thanks, IT, for the virus protection). I never did get it to load. I think I understand the concept, and it seems cool. For me, I lose interest, though, because none of them seem to work for stuff close to home. In my experience, though, only Google's info (maps, in particular) is accurate at a local level. [Note: I will offer a warning from personal experience--don't rely on Mapquest driving directions in rural Western North Carolina.]
Still, I clicked on a few. One I tried was "Lunchbox". The only restaurant it listed was the Huddle House on 441. Honestly, can't anyone do better than that? Lulu's has been mentioned in a popular magazine. You'd think it would be on somebody's radar. The others I clicked on got very quirky locally, too. LookLocal choked on driving directions from Waynesville to Sylva and at one point said, "Use Local Roads". Well, that clears it right up. Still, overall, the directions would have sufficed. Mapified Kayak didn't consider Asheville, NC to be a destination airport. It only went as far as Charlotte. Mezzoman was a simple and cool concept. It found places in Waynesville and Clyde as halfway points between Sylva and Asheville. Good enough.
I hope as more people get connected, we'll have more info filled in for our area. I'm looking forward to it.
1 comment:
Hopefully as some of the more successful and usable applications catch on, they'll spread beyond the urban areas to be more helpful to places like the Fontana Regional area. Thanks for the tip about Mapquest, too!
Post a Comment