Our initial idea was to create an app to help painfully introverted tech conference attendees get talking to each other. Not that everyone at such events is painfully introverted you understand, it's that I (Pete) don't like talking to new folk. Even though I know I should do it. Anyway, this thing was supposed to show you who was in the room, along with their interests, areas of tech expertise (texpertise?) and perhaps whether they were currently looking for a job.
We prototyped the idea on paper and all seemed good but we quickly hit technical snags with GPS, web APIs and so forth. So we pushed on with fiding another idea.
Downcast and disillusioned (not really) we took to the streets of Nottingham. Our hope was that wondering the historic avenues would lead to a spark of inspiration. But it didn't so we came back. After some time we came up with a new idea to help home-worker/freelance type people to get some human connection and avoid the issues of lonely madness. It's essentially Twitter crossed with nineteen-eightees trucker favourites the CB radio.
The concept is that you can join ‘rooms’ and talk over audio. If you just want to hang out and listen to the conversation that’s fine or you can join in with a ‘push-to-talk’ button. If everything gets too noisy you can create a new room. Rooms can be tagged with subjects forum-style or left open-ended for general chitter chattings.
Greg is currently marking up the general prototype of the idea which can be made into a Chrome packaged app. Helen is working on the UI. I’m writing this and trying to shake the doom-feelings that have been coming on since drinking the unusal Big Bamboo Jamaican Irish Moss Peanut Flavoured Drink which I mistakenly thought might be helpful to morale.
Greg is currently doing 'sound processing' which means transferring audio streams across the interwebs. Helen has been working on UI elements. Which is to say she's been messing about with colourful drawings of animal faces. I'm not doing much.
Is the project going well? Interesting question... interesting...