honestlyreal

I still get a buzz out of seeing this:

The seed of the idea appeared in the same room that I’m writing this post in today, almost four years ago. I wrote about it conceptually at the time, before any mapping had been done. And yet, after all this time, is there anything that’s come close to sharing its characteristics of simplicity, popularity and usefulness?

Why did it work? Because it was, and is:

accessible: Anyone could contribute if they could send a tweet. Even if they had no snow (I’ve seen lots of 0/10s).

fast: Instant gratification, really. Nobody had to moderate or process anything. Even before Ben Marsh created his map (and others had a go, too) the hashtag let you see what was going on immediately (spammers notwithstanding).

minimal: Two tiny character sequences are all you need. Part of a postcode, and your opinion on snowiness. Other services look after all the rest, pulling information together and mapping it. No fancy abbreviations or protocols to adhere to. Clever Ben also made it very flexible, so that placenames could be interpreted and the order of information within the tweet didn’t matter.

safe: An information standard that only revealed the first part of your postcode would probably not see you inundated with stalkers.

sporadic: We get this a handful of times a year. If we had the opportunity to do this every day, I think we’d quickly tire of it. I can’t see it catching on in Canada.

disruptive: Lots of us do different things when it snows. We might have extra time on disrupted journeys, or be unable to get to work at all. And we want that to be a shared experience.

inherently fascinating: Brits love weather. End of.

useful: Is the snow coming towards me? How bad is it where I’m planning to go? Who needs a metereologist’s projection when you can just gaze down as if from your own satellite, at what’s happening right now?

not owned: Nobody’s “in charge”. Nobody claims it’s “their system” – although there was one notable attempt. It is genuinely owned by the people, for the people. Ben has made a cheap IOS app for those who want that experience, and good luck to him. But you can see it on the website he’s built for nothing.

traditional: After three years in a row, any quirky British behaviour qualifies as a tradition. Nobody has to blow a whistle to indicate “ok, we’re starting some snow-mapping now,” or go on a training course to learn how to do it. It just happens.

What else could work like this? I hate to say it, but I fear the answer might be: not much. This is a unique combination of characteristics, when you think about it.