Here, there and everywhere

Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there

There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there

I want her everywhere and if she’s beside me
I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share

Here, there and everywhere (Lennon/McCartney) The Beatles, Revolver, 1966

What a wonderful song. Music from a time when bands were made up of musicians, most of whom knew how to play at least one instrument. When melodies meandered. When the ability to sing was considered useful.

Don’t worry, this is not going to be a Those Were The Days rant. In fact I want to celebrate today.

I want to celebrate a time when great things happen because people build platforms and then open them up for others to use and enhance, giving creativity a chance.

Take GeoGuessr as an example. What a lovely idea. A service built on top of Google Street View and Google Maps.

It takes you here, there and everywhere.

It then asks you to guess where you are. You can look around, take a walk (or a ride, depends on how good you are at navigating the view).

Once you’re ready to guess, you place a marker on a map. And the service scores you on accuracy. There may be other factors in the score, such as time elapsed, but that is not evident so far.

So you get to take a random walk around the earth, indulge your curiosity, develop your observation skills, trigger book-memory or experience. And, if you are so inclined, you can make a game out of it.

As developer Anton Wallen says, it was “built as an experiment to investigate the possibilities that the Google Maps API v3 offers, and to create a simple immersive game.” Details to be found in Chrome Experiments.

How simple. How beautiful. Thank you Anton. Thank you Google.

I may not think much of modern music, but I’m entranced by how the artists of today use the instruments of today, how they make platforms and APIs sing. Not just in the world of music, not necessarily in the world of music. Here there and everywhere. Helping improve our lives in many different ways, in healthcare, in welfare, in being informed and responsible citizens.