Where's That Stinkin' Bus? Lemme Check My Phone

Students at many large colleges and universities rely on campus transportation to get to class. But, with just a few minutes between classes and crowded bus stops, it is often difficult for students to know which bus to catch to get to class on time.

Transloc is a new passenger information system that is available on many college campuses. Bus riders can use it to view a digital bus map that tracks a bus's exact location.

Through an app on their Blackberry, iPhone, or Android, students can see each bus moving along its route. In addition, each bus stop contains a screen that shows a digital bus map, allowing riders to know the exact location of the buses on that route.

Transloc turns bus routes into a virtual reality, making campus transportation more convenient.
And effective.

[contributed by Bliss McMichael]

Make It Fun to do the Right Thing

As a social-media contest on the heels of its successful agency-conceived efforts, Volkswagen conducted a contest in which the rest of us were asked for ideas about how to make doing the right thing fun.

It had already made taking the stairs and throwing away garbage fun, by using new technologies in new ways ("The World's Deepest Bin" ["garbage can" for you Americans]; "The Piano Staircase"; and "The Bottle Bank Arcade Machine"). Doing so suggests that doing "bad" isn't in our genes, but in our world.

Regular-guy Kevin Richardson sent in an idea about how to make obeying the speed limit fun, which has become known as "The Speed Camera Lottery."

Rather than a grumpy visit from an officer and a ticket for speeding, a speed camera photographs cars that do not exceed the speed limit. All owners are entered into a periodic lottery, with winners earning cash awards.

The Swedish National Society for Road Safety actually made this innovative idea a reality in Stockholm, Sweden.

Zzzzzz....

Been mighty quiet the past few weeks. Let's hope those creative minds get going.

See What Your Phone Can Do Now

See something in a store and want to find out more about it and where to get it cheaply?

If you have an iPhone or Android, the latest version of Google Goggles makes this a point-and-see operation.

As an app loaded onto your iPhone or Android, it decodes barcodes or even recognizes the actual product you're pointing your phone's camera at. Once recognized, the app connects your phone not only to the website of the manufacturer, but it also generates search results for where you can buy it and how much it'll cost.

As transparent and easy as show and tell--this is really new media in action.

Reading Will Never Be the Same

With all the ways that people can express their opinions through comments, post articles bashing other articles, and tell the world their preferences, the only escape from other people’s opinions has been reading a book. No longer.

Jason Johnson and Jason Illian have created a new mobile application called Social Books. Reader use it to leave comments on any paragraph, quote, or excerpt from a book, and even highlight their favorite parts, plus post it all to Facebook and Twitter.

Currently, the application is only available for books in the public domain such as The Great Gatsby. But this will likely soon change.

[Contributed by Hannah Greenberg]

Keep Track

Facebook connects people all over the world as the biggest way of staying in touch with friends and family. Now, in addition to staying connected with others, you can use it to keep track of where your friends are.

Through its “Places” app, Facebook is taking advantage of GPS satellite tracking systems that are installed in phones to allow people to post their current location, which only their friends see.

This app takes keeping up with your friends and their hot spots to a new level. It takes away the hassle of having to call and see where your friends are hanging or also having to ask around to find the hot spots in town.

By using the GPS capabilities of phones that are so familiar to so many people, this app makes keeping track even easier.

[Contributed by Richard Samuel]

Group Gift-Giving Goes Social

Popular auction website eBay may be what you think of when considering a gift for a friend. But how about eBay to ask other friends to help you pay for it?

Facebook has recently partnered with eBay to allow users to share in the cost of buying an item from the fixed-price gift section. Using Facebook Connect, users can form groups, wait for enough money to be pooled between the friends within the group and, when the item’s value is reached, the gift will be mailed to the recipient.

As a great way to save money and to connect with friends, this innovation will change the way people buy gifts. As more and more big name companies jump on the social media bandwagon, eBay has found a new way in to the social-media market.

By linking friends, websites, and online shopping in a way never before seen or possible, Facebook and eBay have created a great example of really new media.

[Contributed by Paige Garson]