fitzroyalty

Update 13 July 2008: The Fitzroy newsagency / Goodfellows continues to evolve. They now have a new counter, clean new flooring, and shelves that look full of stock rather than half empty. It’s a far more attractive space that makes you feel more comfortable entering.

Original post: The Fitzroy newsagent on Brunswick St has closed its original premises and moved in with Goodfellows. This may be the first obvious sign that the new IGA mini-supermarket has interrupted the business status quo in the area. As I wrote earlier this year, Goodfellows will have to change and improve if it is to survive, and it seems the changes are beginning.

I’ve been decorating my flat with photos of street art printed on canvas. There are many providers around, and most allow you to upload your photo to their server, adjust the framing of the image, and order the canvas stretched and mounted ready for hanging via their website.

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I’ve had many (according to my friends) wild, wonderful and morally dubious ideas about the future of dating sites and social networks over the past few years. Long before I pitched the idea that Qantas should build a social network from their frequent flyer program, I came up with the idea that dating sites should embrace all the social network tricks that have been successful on other sites.

Imagine a dating site that shows your social history (otherwise known as the social graph). Sites could map the social connections between people formed by their sexual relationships the same way Alice’s chart in The L Word does. Actually, that has been used to develop a social network.

Image from the New York Times.

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Update 1 July 2008: while my collaborative map of Fitzroy is still live, no one has contributed, and as I have now implemented Geopress for my blog, enabling me to geotag my posts on my own map, I have less need of an external map. The map does get significant traffic, and I have imported my new GeoRSS enabled feed into it. This may be a good way for me to syndicate my content.

Last year I used Google maps to make a map of Fitzroy to embed in this blog (it’s on the right sidebar). There’s also a feral fruit map of Fitzroy. The tools for non programmers to achieve these geo mashups are just starting to emerge and become functional.

As of today, I have made my Fitzroy map fully open and collaborative. Anyone can add data to it. I am going to monitor and moderate use of the map, but only to remove spam or stupidity. The map is already showing photos and videos Google has in its various platforms and services (Picasa, Youtube, etc). You can explore the content and turn on the images and videos by altering the Google map settings without logging in.

In future, I hope to add photos, videos and blog post markers to my Fitzroy map, and to aggregate as much external content as possible on it. Now it’s your turn. You’ll need a Google account to edit the map.