StartupCafe

Twitter, Gowalla, Foursquare, and now... stalking for dummies!

There are several apps around these days to help us track our friends, see who’s around us, and let’s be honest – stalk people we want to meet. But never before have I seen an app dedicated to the movement of a single individual.

As of this week, the honour of a dedicated app goes to Robert Scoble (@scobleizer), popular tech blogger and social media personality who is heavily followed around SXSW (South by Southwest). Dreamed up by witty Edinburgher Ewan Spence (@ewan), and innocently built by Tom Scott (@tomscott), the aptly named site www.IsScobleInThisRoom.com will answer the question every social media consultant is asking themselves around the conference… 

So, how does the site work? According to Ewan and Tom, “It tracks Scoble’s location round-the-clock based on his online activity, then combines that with HTML5 geolocation to work out the likely distance from Scoble to Scoblefan.”

I had a go with the website just now, and in a Magic 8 ball style answer, I am told that Scoble is “Almost certainly not” in this room – which to be honest is reassuring because Kate and I are having a nap in our bedroom at the moment. For extra stalking assistance, the site adds “We last saw Scoble 2361km away from you, -235 minutes ago.” If we were playing the hot/cold game, it sounds like we’re pretty cold at the moment.

We’d love to hear what Scoble himself has to say about this, but I hope he’s got a good sense of humour and supports its efforts to be the top app at SXSW this year. While the site itself is laden with sarcasm, the fact that Scoble inspired its creation highlights his huge fan base here and their dedication to meeting or simply spotting him.

If you could track a single individual, whose movements would you trace? Think single-target apps are the way forward? Curious to hear your thoughts, and good luck finding Scoble in your room one day…