All Over Albany

Real Time Albany

Who: Chase Billow

Project: Real Time Albany is a web application that will connect the Capital Region like never before. It is a glimpse of what people are doing and talking about right now in and around Albany and allows people and businesses physically located in the area to meet and communicate with each other across the web's largest ecosystems.

A Short Bio: Since the early days of the WWW when AIM was the dominant social network, Chase Billow has been interested in connecting with others online and using the internet to develop and build communities. He received his B.A. from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and came to the Capital Region in 2007 to study at Albany Law School. After two years in the program, he withdrew to pursue a career in web marketing and has been working with The Law Office of Randall E. Kehoe in downtown Albany ever since. He hosted the Open Mics at The Muddy Cup Coffee House, The Drama Cup, and Tierra Coffee Roasters from 2009 to 2011 and has consulted with local businesses on various internet business problems.

A Description of Your Proposed Project: Real Time Albany is a web application that will connect the Capital Region like never before. It is a glimpse of what people are doing and talking about right now in and around Albany and allows people and businesses physically located in the area to meet and communicate with each other across the web's largest ecosystems. Technically, it displays all Tweets with a location within a few miles of downtown Albany in real-time as well as geotagged photos uploaded to Flickr every few hours. Photos and some Tweets are displayed on Google Maps so users can visually understand where things are happening in their neighborhood. Visitors to the site can communicate with each other in real-time through a Facebook plugin with or without posting to their Wall. A scrolling feed of automatically-updated headlines from local websites, blogs, and other publications is also featured (it's how I found out about this contest!). Future plans include the addition of a real-time feed of public status updates from Albany Facebook accounts and the integration of geotagged YouTube videos into the Flickr map.

My hope is that people in Albany use this site as a way to connect to each other online in a more meaningful way. Imagine, for example, that one day you come home from work and Whiskers is missing. Instead of stapling reward posters to telephone poles and speed-dialing Mohawk Hudson, you could send out a Tweet with your location and a photo of your pet. With Real Time Albany, your tweet will be seen not only by your followers, but by people nearby who can help you search. Local businesses could benefit by announcing deals in real-time to a hyper-local audience, free of charge - and it would be as easy as sending a text message or uploading a photo. Live discussion in a focused place online will be a great way to talk about the most important political issues of the day and discover people like you, that you may have never met otherwise.

I believe this project helps unlock some of the utility of these world-famous social platforms. It is already up and running at realtimealbany.com.

How This Funding Would Help: I have a specific plan for how I would use the $1,500.00 Sunmark grant:

$30.00 - DBA application. It's no LLC, but it's enough to open a bank account and start transacting business officially.

$700.00 - Dedicated, local hosting to ensure the best performance with increased traffic. This will cover 3 months at a class-leading facility in Manhattan, by which time advertising on the site will cover hosting costs.

$600.00 - Developer fees. Most of Real Time Albany currently runs on Open Source plugins developed by some very smart people. I'll use some of the money to pay another very smart person to develop the additional functionality I discussed in my description of the project. I've already been in talks with the developer and already have the quote.

$170.00 - "Just in case" money. Every project has unexpected problems, delays, and expenses. I would put this portion aside to help cover the inevitable when it reveals itself.

Thanks everyone! Vote for me!