I've wanted something like this for a long time. In the US and Canada, the now-dead billionaire Carnegie funded libraries in hundreds of communities.

What of a new (global) library? A story (in words, images, audio) for every person, every place, accessible by all? 

You all know how I feel about Angry Birds. Apparently, however, everyone else loves them. So I will post this, from IntoMobile, which is actually a clever idea.

More relevant, I hope, is this interview with one of the people behind LocalMind, which, since they want more money and tech press buzz, they say is: "Foursquare plus Quora".Because, you know, VCs are too important to read the script, er, business plan. Besides, they're just 'Big Concept' producers, er, thinkers.

I don't speak German, but love this idea. Via Springwise:

Storytude is a website and app for Android and iPhone that offers location-based stories as a way to tour several German cities.

Gearing up for a launch in April, Storytude will focus first on Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich and Cologne. Using its apps, consumers will be able to follow along with a variety of fictional stories that use real-life locations as their backdrops. Each chapter is typically associated with a different spot in the city in question, so the user gets immersed there while listening to the tale unfold. Thrillers and short stories are both among the genres of story that will be on offer.

Take note:

In anticipation of its upcoming launch, Storytude is currently looking for developers, writers, editors, marketing people and project managers, it says. Then, too, there would seem to be numerous possibilities for expansion into other cities around the globe. One to get in on early?

Something means never having to say you're sorry. I forget what. But, I do know that smartphones mean never having to be bored. We will surf, read, play, watch, listen, check in, tweet, update, call, text, learn -- and play. Everything will be turned into a game.

Embrace it. Like the makers of Tap City:

Though the first-generation (location-based) services encourage you to connect with friends, you often still end up interacting with the service as an individual, little affected by others' actions, says Dave Bisceglia, cofounder and CEO of The Tap Lab.

 "We wanted compelling narrative and real multiplayer competition," Bisceglia says. In particular, he says, they wanted to avoid the question that often plagues Foursquare: "What's the point?"

Bisceglia and Shao moved away from location-based marketing and plunged into designing a "pure" game. TapCity's users are assigned an "epic mission" when they start the game: to build a fantasy empire overlaid on real-world locations. Players can buy game-world versions of the real-world locations they visit; that gives them control over these places in the game and lets them build virtual fortified buildings on the TapCity map.

By using virtual weapons—such as slingshots and wrecking balls for attack, or guard dogs and force fields for defense—they can try to take over others' locations or defend their own. Shao and Bisceglia intend this to be an intensely social game, in which players recruit friends to join them on incursions into new territory, or to protect locations that are under attack. 

Another company, called Hurricane Party, grounds its location-based service much more in the real world. However, its CEO and cofounder, René Pinnell, also complains that "social media is so antisocial these days," and says he wants to facilitate real social interactions between friends. Hurricane Party is an iPhone app to help friends get together spontaneously, and it aims for that goal more directly than Foursquare, which can produce get-togethers as a by-product of checking in. 

You are having a lovely dinner with your spouse. And can't stop yourself from looking down at your smartphone, and the text you just received.

Out with old friends, having a great time. Yet you repeatedly jack out of this reality to post a picture -- of you and your friends having a great time -- on Facebook.

Standing in front of a great work of art, by an up-and-coming young artist and your first thought is: check-in on Foursquare.

We are all guilty of this. But, fear not, I do not come here to judge you. In fact, I don't think we've gone far enough. Bear with me.

Do you have trigger foods? Does having one potato chip *force* you into consuming the entire bag? What about procrastination? You know you have an important deadline yet you fire up the browser and visit your favorite websites. Day after day after day.

What about a college buddy? Is there one you hook up with, once or twice a year, then wake up the next morning hungover?

One of the keys to bad behavior is we fool ourselves into viewing certain activities in isolation. Similarly, one of the barriers to correcting this is lack of data. Which shouldn't be the case. Only it is, because our smartphones are stupid.

On my smartphone I track what I eat, each day. My smartphone has my grocery list. In a couple years, God willing, I will use it to pay for my purchases. Technically, I can track these now on my device, but that's too much work for me. My smartphone has my calendar. My check-ins. All my tweets and my Facebook updates are via my smartphone. As are my movements, since I carry this with me everywhere. It knows, for example, that right now, I am at:

• Place X, with
• Person Y, doing
• Dear Lord, have mercy on me

Only, my smartphone *never* tells me:

Brian, don't have that Werther's candy, based on past behavior it will only lead to you consuming 6 of them. My calendar is wide open for tonight. A call comes in, from my old friend, on my smartphone. "Brian! Dude! What are you up to!" My smartphone knows I have free time -- and it *ought* to know I'd be better off if I said, "can't tonight, have to --". Only, it doesn't.

Because, for all it's data about me, it offers no wisdom. Which is what I really need.

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File under: Boring is Death

I'm reading an article in HBR magazine on "the death of the middle manager".

The technology revolution has brought us a lot—dramatic improvement in what we know about customers and how we interact with them, markedly better information for making decisions, the ability to work through virtual teams scattered around the globe. But its unseen legacy might be something much more fundamental: It has changed the very nature of how people work. One consequence seems clear: The classic job of the middle manager will soon disappear.

Soon? You mean it hasn't already?

Actually, no. Forget Silicon Valley (start-ups), small businesses. bootstrapping. There are thousands and thousands and thousands more still large and extremely large companies and all are littered with middle managers and others whose value is internally focused -- and thus, nearing extinction.

However, despite the HBR proclamation, 'the every nature of work' doesn't necessarily change as fast as it should. For example, think of how few companies, and how many regulations and tax rules, still prevent telecommuting. Still stop new mothers from putting in 18 hours a week. Still rely on traditional forms of conduct, like meetings, project plans, org charts and the like. Problem is, as much as we should escape from the gravitational pull of 20th century management, as much as business needs to be liberated from its past, it's actually hard to achieve. Culture is significant, yes. However, a large part is because the very technology that is destroying markets, creating new business models, and increasing efficiency, possibly making the middle manager a dinosaur, is also fostering uncertainty. The vacuum of uncertainty always breeds bureaucracy, management, hierarchical decision-making in business.

But what if we could drop in a new technology or platform that fills in this vacuum? One that would be better? Cheaper? Funner? Yes, funner.

I wonder if Foursquare, or Gowalla or SCVNGR or some manner of location-based service might fit the bill.

Think about it. If everyone in your company is on a (semi-private) location-based network, work knows where they are. Forget 'face time'. Workers could check in with the swipe of ther iPhone. They could collaborate. What's more, they could compete for rewards (financial and otherwise). Just like we have with existing companies. Departments could compete against one another, or work together. This could be accomplished not via a series of top-down management-sanctioned workflows, but via a richer, more open-ended Grand Theft Auto experience (without the raping and killing, preferably). The business could start with a series of fun, virtual tasks explicity designed to guide a group, or individual worker to achieve some desired goal; be it sales, websit visits, software bug fixes. Similarly, they could lose points for failing to reach the next level of the 'game'. This location-based gaming service could be placed on every worker's smartphone. And it could be designed to be the new middle manager. Check-ins. Getting status. Sharing. Rewards. Punishments. Levels. Points. Badges. Only, with much better, richer data, allowing anyone to see what anyone else is doing at any time, at any place. This may even build greater cross-department interactions.

Like any new virtual game or smartphone location-based service, like Foursquare, even new hires could jump right in and legitimate achievement, regardless of tenure, is what determines the winner. Plus, uncovering pitfalls, sharing power-ups, leaving behind 'breadcrumbs' could make for a leaner, meaner, more hyper-aware corporation. Seems like a nice transition; one allowing the larger business to effectively move from its current management-heavy status, to one that is more disbursed, online, participatory and possibly far more collaborative. What do you think?

I hear people talk about eventually placing a 'gaming layer' onto what individuals do. The big frontier, in my view, is to build this game layer into work. Smartphones plus location-based services like Gowalla and Foursquare may usher this change in once and for all -- and quicker then we might expect. While these location-based services (LBS) start-ups are focused on building an information/virtual/gaming/data layer on top of location, maybe one of them should switch gears. Instead, build that layer on top of a corporation and its mission, then let any worker, anytime, at, yes, any location, check-in and play. Or, if that's too much, the corporation and LBS company can jointly design challenges, rewards, tasks and check-ins (contests and games) exclusively for workers. LBS for marketing, for giving 5% off your next purchase to the first ten to check in is, well, boring. And I'm not convinced that's where the big money is.