My concept would use location based services to pinpoint where in the world a post is being submitted. When you post an image of your holiday, say, in Mumbai, the people who follow your posts and feeds will automatically be able to see that you have posted from Mumbai and view a map of your current location. This is down to the mobile device that you post the image from, using the mobile network, it can place your geographical position. This challenges the ideas of the loss of location privacy discussed in the article by stephen B Wicker who suggests that people are defined by where they are. This is an issue within my concept as people may judge people on their locations, for example wales is less exotic to the british public as Hawaii and the social stereotyping which may occur with the use of this technology.
The Semantic Web
If the web is able to process what the user is looking at then the website and app for my concept can direct a user to similar users and location posts. The semantic web will allow users to find interests without other users having to use tags which will speed up the process of sharing images. In order for users to attract other users they will have to tag topics but if we could introduce the semantic web to the concept this would eliminate the need to tell other users more information as the semantic web would organise information for us.
User generated content, Web 2.0 and Social Networks
This technology will make up almost the entire structure behind my concept. It is using ideas from ready created social networks and combining them to create something new. Web 2.0 allows for user generated content meaning that the web has become a pull media as well as a push media used in web 1.0. Web 2.0 allows for interactions between user interfaces and allows us to do simple things that we now take for granted. Web 2.0 allows for uploading and sharing of images and posts which is essential for my concept.
The journal by Liam Morgan explores how web 2.0 is allowing for the younger generation to learn language independently. This use of web 2.0 will be good for my concept as when people are travelling they will be all over the world and users will be from many different countries. Understandably, everyone will post things in their own language and if people are feeling confident about learning other languages they will be able to appreciate posts from people all over the world.
Mashups
My concept will use mash-ups as this is often a feature of web 2.0. One use for mash ups is communication and my concept creates a mash up through communication as the idea of my concept is not primarily for communication but this is a by product of the idea. Therefore creating a mashup.
Mobile Apps
This technology makes up my concept. Nowadays you will struggle to find someone between my target age range (16-40) who do not own a smart phone which runs on either apple app store, google play (powered by android) windows or blackberry app world. This means that making an app for a smart phone increases business prospects massively. The idea behind my concept focuses more on the mobile app than it does on the website, as when people are travelling they are less concerned with accessing a full computer and would normally use wifi to connect to the internet on a mobile device. This could be a restriction to my concept as people do not normally use 3G internet on their mobile phones when away due to high roaming costs.
However, I would have to ensure that my app would be user friendly, clear and simple to upload images, it would have to include a short tutorial on how to use the app and it would have to be available on all four of the major smartphone operating platforms (Apple, Android, Windows and Blackberry)
I would offer a free version of the app to people which would work well and run efficiently but I would also create a pro version of the app which would cost £1.49. This would offer some extra features including extra photograph enhancements and a direct messaging system to users (so that contacting other users about destinations was a quicker process). Below is a graph of the users on each smartphone operating system:
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