A Startup A Day

 Any of you idea geeks might be able to relate to this.  You’re walking along a busy street and you think “I have a great idea for a new service!  It’s a location-based dating/meeting/chat service based on your GPS location on your cell phone!  Screw you, Best Buy/trendy coffee shop/tech repair shop, I’m going to be a millionaire!!”

 …

 OK, so maybe I’m the only one.  It sucks because it seems like such a cool idea at first, and then gets messy really fast.  First you need to get a mass audience that is using your service (Zune track sharing, anyone?).  Then you need to work out deals with TelCos or hope users will install your software on thier phones.  THEN you need to get past all the privacy and security issues that come with random people being able to track/find you whereever you are.

Still, here’s my idea.  You’re walking in a crowded area when suddenly you get a text message on your cell phone.  It reads “An enemy spy has been spotted.  Locate them before they locate you.”  Your mission is then to search the crowd for the other “Spy vs Spy” player.  They may be the person who is discreetly trying to check their cell phone, or maybe the one who is walking quickly to higher ground while glancing around suspiciously. 

Once you think you have identified the spy, you reply with a text message giving some basic personal details (i.e. sex: male hair: brown).  If you are correct on the initial details, the system will text back a message showing six images of brown-haired males.  You choose the pic that matches your suspected spy, and if you are correct, the game is over and you accumlate a certain number of points based on how quickly you were able to find the spy. 

Any other idea geeks out there with their pet “location-based-cell-phone-tracking-million-dollar-idea” stories?  Are social GPS apps going to take off?  Any Zune owners in my vicinity willing to squirt me the new Modest Mouse album?