PRP - artifact #5 - site ideas

I decided for artifact 5 to make an app, so to eliminate some of the need of loading graphical site components.

First things first though, it's been hard to think up what content I should provide in the mobile app I'm making. After all, the content will influence the styling and so this is an important first decision.

Considerations so far have included:

Weather

This would offer the opportunity to make some nice weather graphics and depending on the feeds sourced, could offer some map associated or postcode results.

Flight status

I found a great site called FlightStats which offers RSS feeds for flight departure, arrival, delays etc. This one proved the most promising. They also provide XML data in an evaluation period membership, which students have been granted free access to if they were using the data into a new platform. GREAT SO FAR...

However, on going into the dedicated developer section of the site I find that there are already 3 iphone apps covering largely the same content and one for Android. What surprised me was that these apps are priced ones, and so people would have to spend to access this information that is already available for free on the main site or through various downloadable widgets. I figure it's the user interface and mobile capability that they believe justifies the charge.

Technology news

There are so many tech blogs/news sites out there. The good thing is that with this choice you can dip in and out of whatever story interests you, whilst also hopefully getting a more balanced opinion on news topics, as sites can be a little biased sometimes. OK, the news content could be repeated but to establish themselves as desktop sites, these sites have had to diverge slightly in their editorial content and so hopefully a mobile amalgamation of these sites wouldn't result in four news headlines all about the same thing.

Gossip

This last one I think has real potential. When I googled the apps existing they were all for American news. In Britain, Heat, Now, OK, Hello, Closer et al have big readerships and I wondered if this would translate in the digital market. Furthermore, iPhones has helped encourage females perceptions of a gadget product, and so I thought perhaps creating a gossip mobile app, with all the associative stylings would prove an interesting venture. This would likely contrast with the gadget news I suggested before which on the whole would likely incur a male following and thereby dictate the styling somewhat.

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I based these ideas upon using RSS feeds to power the app. The purpose of using the app in the first place is that it will encourage more use if it is constantly updated. I myself won't be doing this, so in comes the useful really simple syndication.

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