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February 03, 2008
Google Maps vs. Friday Night Indecision
I've been meaning for a long time to play around with the Google Maps API. For non-technical folks, the API lets you use Google's lovely map technology to create and manipulate maps of your own. It's relatively easy, and quite flexible.
The other day, I thought of a practical -- and food-related! -- application. Every few weeks or so, D and I (and occasionally some unlucky friend) decide that we're hungry and want to go out in Manhattan, but can't think of a place to go. We're usually at work, and the indecision can sometimes drag on for over an hour while we browse Chowhound or get sidetracked by food-related videos or whatever. I KNOW there are restaurants we should try -- places I've read about and tried to remember, but for some reason they never come to mind late on a Friday, when this frustrating phenomenon usually occurs. If they do, I can't remember where they are or what they're called. Sometimes we leave work and meet at some neutral place to kick-start the process, but still can't think of anything, and so wander around aimlessly. It's pathetic.
Enter Google maps. If we had all of the restaurants stored in a list and mapped, we could use D's Blackberry to visit it and pick something from the list. This probably exists on a restaurant site somewhere, but it's fun to create your own. At the moment, I've implemented a pretty hack-y version. The places aren't in a database or even in XML (though I have a version of this that does pull from XML, but which is not ready for prime-time yet). Also, the places are all expensive, so when last Friday rolled around and we couldn't think of anything, it didn't help AT ALL. Still, we'll get there. If the novelty doesn't wear off, I'll add a little "Add a restaurant" section which will update my XML or DB or whatever.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Posted by csageday at February 3, 2008 12:24 PM
Comments
Back when Rishi (Vinesh) lived in SF, we had an often-blown-off standing dinner-get-together every week. And of course no one would pull the trigger on deciding which restaurant. So we tried to implement "The Wheel Of Food" - a database of interesting restaurants with links to reviews and the restaurants. Spin the wheel and see your culinary fate decided. I got it as far as a fancy little Filemaker database but could never really get it on the web so we gave up. This looks even more fun so please don't give up.
Posted by: Jason at February 4, 2008 01:01 PM
Yay! Someone besides D and spambots are reading this!!
A wheel of food is much more creative and complicated -- you get two stars for effort. I do like the finality of having a dookicky make the decision for you (you WILL go to Per Se tonight, economy be damned!). I could easily pick a random number and highlight something. Maybe I'll add a "pick one" button. There is the giving-up possibility, but posting it here should guilt me into at least adding some more places. And then maybe I can hand it off to D, who wants to "learn about this Internet thing."
Posted by: Cindy at February 5, 2008 12:03 AM