ON PLATIAL AND GEO-SOCIAL NETWORKING

MEMORIES LIGHT THE CORNERS OF MY STREETS...

Here's a new twist on an old idea.  It's a company named Platial, described by Wired Magazine as:

"...a new and growing community site...that's spreading a decidedly personal layer of geographic data atop the familiar terrain of online mapping.

Platial provides a home for people who love quirky geographical information or just want to mark the locations that have meaning to them.

Sign up for a free account, and you can start building and sharing personalized maps, complete with place markers, tags and descriptions of each spot. Collaborate on them with your buddies, or keep them to yourself."

I haven't tried it yet, but the concept seems promising.  It's decidedly a "Web 2.0" company, employing tags, mash-ups, an ad-sense driven business model, and the obligatory company blog.

It's a young site, with the following metrics reported by Wired:

"The site boasts more than 1,600 registered users and 30,000 unique visits per month. Its 735 user-created maps chart 41,000 places."

Having lived in Manhattan for over two decades, I can empathize with the core drive for a site like this.  Often whizzing through the Manhattan streets in the back seat of a cab, the mind cycles through different memories over the years as the street corners flash by.

Would enough people have the patience and inclination to actually share these with the world through a geo-location powered social networking site? It remains to be seen, but the idea probably has legs, at the very least for tourism and travel related communities.

Comments

[Dave Sanford]

Michael,

I played with platial a bit and agree that it's more interesting than a lot of other web2.0 ideas. My answer your question is, people will create information in this way because it is identity-reaffirming (in this particular case, it may also be useful, in terms of keeping track of meaningful experiences in the way you described in your post). As I've mentioned before, I think a significant motivator for participation in these types of sites is theh identity drive, i think it is particularly strong when it comes to places because location is so much at the heart of how one identifies him/herself, both in the very short term (where I choose go to dinner) and long term (where I choose to make my home).

[Ajit Jaokar]

Hi Michael, How is this different from www.plazes.net? In either case, its a useful application and this is an interesting space. rgds Ajit