Wireless carriers and mobile phone manufacturers have long been touting location-based information services as future killer apps. Now, a New Jersey technology executive working in his spare time has created a location-based tool that might one day help political activists win elections.
Known as Red | Blue (pronounced "Red or Blue"), Jason Uechi's free application allows owners of certain mobile phones to point in any direction and see how much money Republican and Democratic donors there have given to their parties' candidates for president.
Red | Blue works with some carriers' Java- and GPS-enabled phones and offers two main visualization tools.
The first resembles a gas gauge and, using GPS to determine users' actual locations, can tell them whether the neighborhood they're in leans Republican or Democratic and how much money the geographically closest several hundred donors to each party's presidential candidate have given.
If, for example, the 369 closest Democratic supporters in a Wisconsin district have given Sen. John Kerry $133,438 and the same number of Republicans has raised $41,210 for President Bush, the gauge would lean heavily left and a donkey would appear in the middle of the screen. Similarly, in a Republican stronghold, an elephant would replace the donkey.
It's "like a Geiger counter for political bias," wrote Andy Baio about Red | Blue on his blog, Waxy.org.
The second tool is more akin to a compass than a gas gauge. Users can go anywhere in the United States, point in any direction they choose and see how much money the closest several hundred donors in that direction have given to each party's would-be president. As the user turns, so does the readout on the compass.
The underlying fund-raising data incorporated into Red | Blue comes from Fundrace, a web-based project of Eyebeam R&D that compiles fund-raising data from the Federal Election Commission and allows anyone to discover how much money any individual has given to a presidential candidate in the current political cycle.
"Red or Blue takes that from the desktop computer in the office out into the streets, so that (users) can get real-time information about who's giving wherever they" go, said Jonah Peretti, Eyebeam's director of research and development. "Red or Blue is a great way to explore that concept using mobile technology so that people can, as they move through neighborhoods and cities, get a sense of the political leanings of where they're standing."
For now, only some Nextel Communications or Handango subscribers, as well as some BlackBerry owners, can use Red | Blue.
"There's a tremendous amount of users that are on the BlackBerry," said Uechi, who developed much of the application while commuting to his job as chief technology officer at GlobalWorks, a marketing firm. "And political wonks are all about the BlackBerry."
Uechi, a Democrat, said he doesn't think Red | Blue is ready yet to make a big difference in this year's election.
"It isn't a true Geiger counter going, 'Oh my God, you're standing next to a Republican,'" he said. "Honestly, it's just for fun. I don't have a strong agenda for this in terms of thinking this could be a political tool."
But Peretti thinks Uechi may be underestimating his own invention.
"It could definitely be a tool, even in this election," Peretti said. "When you're talking about someone who's canvassing, (they) could make sure they're threading the line between Republican and Democratic neighborhoods."
