I recently came across Tonight.im, a clever little mashup that takes my data from my Withings Scale (highly recommended internet-connected scale) and maps it to my foursquare (highly recommended location-based service 
) checkins so I can visualize how some of the decisions I’ve made about the places I go – food, bars, cafes – may be impacting my weight gain/loss over time.
The interface is still quite spartan but the data seeds are there for some really interesting behavior analysis. I can’t wait to see where they take this service (they’re already teasing a Top Healthy & Unhealthy Places feature)
Sign up and keep an eye on Tonight.im.
To be totally transparent, I signed up for Hunch during their beta and subsequently went back a bunch of times to explore and answer questions but felt that I never really grokked the full meaning of what they were doing.
Fast forward a few months, Chris Dixon posts a link to a Hunch Census Widget on Twitter. I gave it a go and was totally delighted + fascinated with the product. Additionally, I immediately understood the importance and complexity of what they’re pulling off at Hunch.
Anyway, I wanted to give it a go here on everydayux to allow everyone to get a better sense of everyone else on the blog, and in the process try and demystify the value of Hunch to anyone out there who might be in the same boat I was. It doesn’t take much time and I highly recommend you go all the way through to get the most of it. Post your thoughts in the comments and I’ll follow up with another post showing the aggregate community results.
Thanks for playing!
With just a snippet of extra code, get a great looking report on how mobile users are accessing your site. Here’s a look at a full report. (via teendrama)
Along similar lines, though not nearly as visually impressive, as Dopplr’s Annual Report, I noticed today that the Nike+ site gives you the option to get a “rundown” on 2008. Check out mine above. Seeing this now makes me upset that I took a few months off from Nike+. Damn you, wasted data! (If a run happens and Nike+ doesn’t capture it, did it really happen?)
It’s great to see so many people finally realizing that you can be clever about the data you’re collecting from the ongoing usage of your product. Giving this kind of info back to your users, if done right, can go a long way towards strengthening their connection with your product. Nike could have gone a bit further (and I bet they will next year) but this is definitely a step in the right direction.
Corey Menscher, an ITP student I had the pleasure to meet this week while checking out the awesome final projects from Dennis Crowley’s class, has built a clever sensor-based device for pregnant women to wear that senses the baby’s kicks and initiates a Twitter message for all those not carrying the baby to share in the experience. I love this stuff.
The Java application receives the sensor values and analyzes them. When a kick event is detected, a Twitter message is posted via the Twitter API. I chose to use Twitter because it is easy to initiate an SMS message to any mobile phone when a kick is detected. It also acts as a data log that can be accessed programmatically for visualization or archiving.
Check out the output here.
Read all about Kickbee here (via psfk)
PS: He’s also building a super cool location-based trivia + scavenger hunt called Geogeni.us (something many have tried and almost all have failed) for Dennis’ class. In my opinion, Geogeni.us is handling one of the major stumbling blocks to these kinds of apps (solution confirmation) in a really clever way (hint: solutions tied to locations). Check it out!
Imagine all the cool apps you could build on top of this.
Judging by the upcoming potential budget cuts and slashed lines, I don’t see something like this in our MTA’s future. Sniffle.
… basically this is the type of data that drives the signs you see on the L train ("Next Train: 25 minutes"). Now imagine building this into an iPhone app or something so whenever you are standing over a subway station (GPS!) the phone can tel you whether it’s worth going in and paying the $2 (vs. you sitting around waiting 45 mins for the next train)…. or your phone buzzing with an SMS before you leave your apt for work / airport/ night out letting you know the F train is on fire / delayed 20 minutes / etc
Read more over at Dennis’.
