Marsbot Was Ahead Of Its Time

Remember MarsBot?

M.G. Siegler (@spyglass.org) asked a question yesterday that got me thinking: "Where is the 'Where I've Been' Service?" He took a trip down the SoLoMo (social, local, mobile) memory lane with apps like Foursquare, Swarm, and Gowalla. His focus was on the location history aspects of these apps, but I wonder if the "where are my friends?" function of those apps was the bigger draw, and if apps like Find My were the real nail in the coffin.

I personally gave up on the check-in apps a long time ago, but I never stopped the habit they helped me form of saving places I've been. I'm less consistent than I used to be, but I have 15+ years of starred place data in Google Maps and Apple Maps. My workflow these days is a rolling "Want To Go" list in Apple Maps that I then convert to a starred place after I've been there.

I keep hoping Apple will turn Apple Maps into a new application layer via a Map Extension framework. Instead of standalone apps that use MapKit to organize location information, give us access to add layers of information on the map people actually use on a daily basis.

Anyway, I digress. All this remembering about Foursquare and Swarm got me thinking about Dennis Crowley (@denniscrowley.com) and the idea of a context bot that has been stuck in my head ever since he wrote this:

What if we could create a bot that summons YOU?” An app you never have to use, but one that can nudge you when you walk into a new neighborhood or whisper in your ear when something amazing is around the corner. We didn’t want to create a Chat Bot to endlessly answer your questions. We wanted to create a Context Bot — one that can understand where you’re standing, learn from the places you’ve been, and predict what you may want to do next.

And so we built Marsbot.

It’s an app. You download it. You open it. And then the idea is you never touch it again. After a few days Marsbot will learn about the neighborhoods you frequent, the paths you walk through the city, the types of places you go to and the habits you have. And every few days after that, Marsbot will send you a text message with helpful suggestions of new places to try, new corners to turn, and new paths to walk. It’s a bot that gets smarter over time, entirely based off where you take it.

Dennis wrote that post in 2016. Ten years ago! And yet even with all of the advances in AI, we're still stuck summoning the apps. When will it turn the other way around?