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The long goodbye…

I remember it was bloody cold – minus 4 according to the car just before Alex (my very good friend @winkysmileyface), my dog and I bedded down for the night in a campsite just across the road from a pub somewhere in the North Downs. Despite the cold I was buzzing – hours before, whilst we sat in the warm pub over a pint and some dinner, I had pulled out my old net-book and loaded up a website that had the route we had walked that day, on a Google map, as well a few markers for some tweets and twitpics I had shared. It was 20th February 2010, and I had just shared the first Social Hiking map.

Continue reading “The long goodbye…”

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Using Social Hiking on a hike: a personal example

On my most recent hike, with Rich (@FlintyRich), I decided to record a series of mini-podcasts talking about how I actually use Social Hiking when out on a hike.

The podcasts cover a range of topics: starting a walk and switching on location source (and what Social Hiking does when you start sharing location), setting a map title using Twitter, adding media to your map, automatic peak bagging, tweeting with context to your hike, changing a map icon using Twitter and uploading gpx files and photos when you get home.

The main point I wanted to get across is that I did not need to visit the Social Hiking website  at all throughout the day, I just used the apps and social media sites I would usually use to share thoughts, photos and audio on the walk, and Social Hiking has then compiled it all to create a live updating, media rich, map to help me share my adventure. Simples.

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My first podcast: the inspiration and how I turn an idea into reality (at low cost)

“Welcome to episode one of the Social Hiking podcast”…. so began my first ever podcast, recorded with my friend Nina (@smirnieoutdoors) in her house in Shropshire. The podcast itself, now it has been published, has gone down really well (the feedback has been beyond my wildest dreams), but it is hard to believe that, as we sat there in Nina’s sitting room with our show notes and podcast sponsor, it was only two weeks before that I scribbled in my notebook: “podcast? guest co hosts? Nina?”. This post is the story of what inspired me to decide to record a podcast and how it went from an idea to reality (at minimal cost). Hopefully it will interest, aid and inspire.

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Sharing adventures as they happen with Google’s glasses

Is this the ultimate is sharing your adventure live as it happens? In this video Google’s Sergey Brin leads a demo of Google’s Project Glass with a group of skydivers, bmxers and abseilers all using Google’s new video-capturing spectacles sharing live via Google Hangout.

Google hopes to start selling the devices, which broadcast images directly in front of the users’ eyes allowing them to stream video and social media applications, as early as 2014.

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Meeting social media legend @philcampbell

I have known Phil Campbell, in a Twitter sense, pretty much since I first started using ‘modern’ social media (he was the second person I followed on Twitter). Other than a very brief introduction a few years ago however, I have not actually met him face to face. This finally changed earlier this week when he invited me up to Nottingham for an interview about Social Hiking.

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Quick sharing of photos whilst outdoors: Instagram

Over the last few trips, I have been experimenting with different services for ‘instantly’ sharing photos. I am by no means a good photographer, but often I see something I think others will find interesting and I want to point, shoot and share to my preferred networks from my phone with the minimal amount of hassle. On a recent trip to Dartmoor I had a play with Instagram, and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Continue reading “Quick sharing of photos whilst outdoors: Instagram”

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Blogging about different but related interests and philsorrell.com

Several years ago I started an outdoor blog (mycountryside.org.uk) where I posted about the countryside, walks, trips and kit. This was followed a couple of years later by a web related blog (daylightgambler.com) about web development, social media and freelancing. At around the same time I built Social Hiking, a site that lets you share your outdoor adventures, and I began to get interested in how people share, now and in the future, their experiences outdoors on the web – this has lead me to build relationships with some great outdoor bloggers and people who create and share content. This collision between my outdoor and web worlds has caused a few problems!

The first problem is where do I post things? For example a review of a social network for sharing location specific photos: outdoor blog or web blog? A tutorial on setting up a blog to share outdoor experiences: outdoor blog or web blog? A post on the talk I did at innovex on the web, mobile apps and the outdoors: outdoor blog or web blog? You get the idea!

The other problem is updating: I was finding it harder and harder to keep up to date multiple blogs, I was losing the conversation as I jumped between blogs, and I was avoiding writing posts I wanted to write because they did not really fit with either blog.

The solution: philsorrell.com

Continue reading “Blogging about different but related interests and philsorrell.com”