A Glimpse Of The World Around Me

We're in a soul searching phase here at Platial; looking inside, looking outside and acknowledging how much work has been done in the building of the geoweb and the solidification of neogeography as a worthy effort in the past 3 years. As we look out at all of the knowledge that has been collected, aggregated and annotated it is truly inspiring. We're staring out at a world of information and access which is very different from when we started Platial. Google MyMaps, Open Streetmaps, Wikimapia, Everyscape, Outside.in, and a new group of mobile focused folks like Loopt and Socialight. Annotation abounds and it's exhilarating. Overnight, Apple's iPhone is going to make this information more accessible, interesting and urgent. Every one of these projects has a unique approach to making sense of the world around us from the perspective of people everywhere. We didn't expect it all to come together so fast and in so many interesting ways.

So, where does Platial/Frappr go from here? That's what we're thinking about these days. Maybe you are thinking about where you go now as well. In case you are, I thought I'd share a few ideas from The Art Of Travel that are helping me rediscover the original spark of our work.

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In 1873 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about travel. "He distinguished between collecting facts of life like an explorer or academic and using known facts to the end of inner psychological enrichment." He believed in the value of the latter. 
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"Instead of bringing back 1600 new plant species we may have a collection of small, unfeted but life changing thoughts."
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Alexander von Humboldt (Naturalist and Explorer) journeyed to South America motivated by a ''longing to be transported from a boring daily life to a marvelous world.'' He did so much more in adding to the scientific knowledge of the world.
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"The needle of his curiosity led him to his own magnetic north".
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In Xavier de Maistre's Nocturnal Expedition Around my Bedroom he pioneered room travel, which he believed might be more practical for those neither as brave nor wealthy as real world explorers - and for those afraid of storms, robbers and high cliffs.
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How can we better notice or rediscover what we have already seen? Maybe by seeing the world through the eyes of the people who travel the streets every day. By accepting a travel mindset in the places we go every day.

Hard to answer succinctly "What Problem Does It Solve?" when we're still out exploring, sharing, collecting and working at sating our collective curiosity about the world around us. (Hard for me anyway- feel free to let me know if you've nailed it).

But anyway we carry that curiosity around wherever we go even if its the corner store. For us, just glimpsing all that exists around us is hugely enriching, even marvelous.

Comments

[sierra]

FYI: half the links to external firms are broken & need to be prefixed with http://.

[deisnor]

Thanks. Sorry about that.

[Tracy]

Something about movement shakes ideas out. Not only travel per se, but even just taking a walk or a bike ride. Something about it helps the wheels of my machine turn.

One of the reasons I move around so much is that I'm trying to stuff as many different lives into this one I've got as possible. Nothing gives you that new life feeling like having a new culture, a new political system, and a new language to learn.

More than being in new places, I like getting to new places. Being on the move shakes you out of time itself somehow. The new goal Erik and I are working toward right now (in our minds only so far!) is to be able to all of us take a year off sometime in the next 5 years so we can take Vigo out of school, get a houseboat, or maybe just bikes, and spend a whole year on the go.