When my kids come down with various horrible flu variations, and it gets bad enough to see a doctor, we often hear from the pediatrician: “Oh, yes, it’s going around. You’ll have vomiting for two days, and then you’ll get better.”
Well, gosh darn it, why couldn’t someone have told us? If so much is known about a certain bug, then it would help a lot — both with life planning and with managing emotions — if you knew a little bit about what was in store for you.
Somebody should come up, then, with a Web 2.0 site where people could report what they’re catching and what you can expect from it. You could see a map of your region and watch the red cloud or the blue cloud spread closer and closer to your neighborhood, the better to step up your hand washings. As you lay in bed, miserable, you’d know that at least you had only 24 hours to go. Or whatever.
The Web did what you would expect -- IT ACTED LIKE A COMMUNITY-CAMP-SOCIALNETWORK AND IT ANSWERED! OH GLORIOUS WEB! OH SO MANY PEOPLE WITH TIME ON THEIR HANDS AND AN EYE ON THEIR BANK ACCOUNTS AND OVER-THE-COUNTER SUDAFED! YES VIRGINIA, there actually IS such a site!
It is called whoissick.org. There you can track post nasal drip in YOUR TOWN! Right Now, 24x7, from any Internet browser -- cough/sore throat (as if they're the same), headaches, fever and more. You sick? ME TOO!
And I'm sure mobile is coming soon.
I can sleep tonight, let me tell you.
This got Me In the Spirit, and I sent George back some ideas of my own as I began imagining the Possibilities of the social web:
CART4YOUYOULAZSHIT.COM - A social site where grocery store shoppers enter the last location of the cart they used so geeks with PDAs can pull in and park next to the nearest empty cart that is closest to the store's entrance! Hey, CALLING WHOLE FOODS - w00t!!
EATMYGASNOW.COM - A social site where participants monitor their farts and the farts of others AGAINST where they have eaten out so that the social web can determine which eateries serve the gassiest foods! t00t!!
RUNNINGOUTOFTOILETPAPERTODAY.COM - A social site where we track how much toilet paper we use, and who is running out of toilet paper, and then perhaps we can determine who is wasteful and send trainers out to teach "new techniques" in ass wiping! Hat Tip to George for the domain! h00t!!
Apparently George is on board for site development as he sent me some of his preliminary social research:
"Your search - runningoutoftoiletpapertoday----.com - did not match any documents."
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
