If there’s one thing city search sites have in common it’s their predictability. Looking for something to do? You can plow through the various categories: movies, theater, dining, concerts, museums,…yawn. It’s always the same. And heck, if you knew what you wanted to do, you won’t be bothering with a city search site in the first place, would you? You would just be doing it already. Maybe it’s time for a better way to explore your city: by mood.
Inspired by Musicovery, a music discovery service that suggests songs based on your mood, Andy Whitlock decided to reinvent city search much in the same way. Instead of focusing on the activities themselves, his city search websites let you explore based on your mood.
At I Feel London, I Feel NYC, and IFeelToronto, you can find activities, nightlife, shops, dining, bars, and more based on how you feel: energetic, chilled, manly, sophisticated, romantic, naughty, manly, and even broke. After clicking on your current feeling, the different types of activities appear on the Google map with customized pushpins that match the feeling. For example, “girly” pushpins are a set of smoochy lips, “hungover” pushpins are really dark shades.
The maps are hardly comprehensive guides to the cities, but that’s OK since they’re open for collaboration. You can help fill in their gaps by requesting an invite to the various Google maps being created. Although only three maps are live now, there are nine maps in total being worked on at this time.
You might think the maps are just someone’s nifty side project, but to Andy, they represent much more than that. He notes, “Although it’s tempting to focus on how technology can enable new behavior, I’m more interested in how it can remove barriers to behaving in ways we are programmed to do. Mood – or state of mind – seems to me to be the most fundamental trigger for human action.”
