The Digital Cloud

Silicon.com have just launched a new website aimed at air travellers who want to find internet access at airports. The concept  is an excellent one, but I think that the site has a few problems and some structural flaws. The site is still in beta (like all good web based apps when launched) so perhaps there is an opportunity for things to change.

The content will be all user generated,  the idea being that as people fly around the world they rank the various airports that they visit.  The rankings are based on a score in the following categories;

• WiFi access
• Cellular (mainly looking at 3G)
• Fixed line
• Powerpoints (For charging your laptop)
• Comfort (general comfort level of airport)
• Cost
  

There is then a free text entry area for a brief  comment or description of facilities.  If you supply a comment rather just a ranking then this comment is posted to the page for that particular airport.  Obviously if the site gets more popular, then for the major airports there will eventually be  a lot of comments. To help with that readers of the site  can rank a comment as useful or not useful. You can then view the comments for a particular site either by most useful or by most recent.  You can also do a further refine by searching within a specific airport comments.

At present there is very little content, but that may change as Silicon.com has just announced the site to its readership.  I have done my bit by adding comments for Gatwick and Dubai (which I will also post here shortly).

 However some of the problems of the site in my opinion are that there is no ability to re-edit a previously submitted  post.  So presumably to update your information you would have to  submit another post, which may not be ranked as being as useful as your previous comment and therefore not necessarily show up near the top of the posts.  The FAQ for the site says that it is not a Wiki ( building up one page of information for each airport from user input).  I am not convinced that a Wiki type approach might not be the better approach and more useful for travellers  in the long run.  Another smaller gripe I have is that the comment is input in  free text with no way of providing  even basic formatting, which would useful in making the posts more readable.

 As a contributor I would like the ability to add to my original post as  I travel through an airport and find out new information or that things have changed.   The  site FAQ does say that there is plans for a registration scheme which would make this type of functionality easier to implement.  

Another smaller issue with the site includes the home page, which is quite frankly boring.  People like statistics and charts, so  I think it would be interesting to see feedback such as the current highest ranking airport overall, or by category. The most useful contribution in the last week, month.  The most prolific contributor,  etc.  etc.  Again perhaps all this is planned for the future once the content gains critical mass.

 Lastly there is a small little Google map "mashed" into site, which seems to provide little value, other than place the airport on the map, and a cynic might say that this was done just because it could.   Can  anyone provided me with how they might get value from this?

Anyway enough winging, I think it is an excellent idea,  so go to atlarge.com and add your rankings !