Idea: Two months ago, I had published an idea about social networking in flights. Today British Airways announced that they will be investing heavily to make their air travel socially buzzing. They also outlined a number of incremental steps they will be taking in that direction. Willie Walsh, the new CEO of BA, has posed a million dollar challenge to design first version of social flight codenamed flykut. Well, if I were Mark Zuckerberg, I would just integrate basic facebook application in flights' personal screens along with a few applications and profiles of the passenger on board. I would also provide a touch screen keypad (like in iPhone) so that passengers can communicate (or play games, participate in quizzes). In addition, I would convert all headphones into headsets with microphones. Voice chats among fellow passengers would open up a myriad of possibilities.
Reward: Meet new people, learn new things, share new experiences.
Bonus: Since many flights now offer internet, the socializing experience need not be limited to in-flight passengers only. You could in fact socialize with people on the ground, or people on other flights!
9 comments:
Flykut with orkut ;)
"Kut Away", sounds great way to waste time on board. If nothing else, harmless flirting can improve social skills, posture, smile and blood circulation(with every positive response received from the opposite sex)
Why just facebook? Every Indian and Brazilian's love - orkut should definitely be there too.
Who knows, matches would get made in heaven , literally, with Flykut!
have you tried flying in virgin america ?
Your idea is worth thinking about :) The one thing I would disagree with is converting headphones to have mics. If I were flying from India to the US, I would hate it if someone woke me up with their voice chatting especially given how hard I have to try to fall asleep. So long as everything is text, it would be fun. They could also change the screens to be more user friendly in that case or provide some sort of a horizontal work keyboard kind of thing.
Madan:
Why? What do they have in Virgin America?
Meenakshi:
I wasn't thinking about match making at all. Your vision sounds hopelessly romantic.
Vishakha:
Of course usage of mics has be restricted. But there are workaround like compartmentalizing sections, noise canceling headphones or earplugs. About the pluggable and portable keyboards, I think they already do exist, we just got to make it work with the flight computers.
oh boy!!.. hot babes r gonna be busy!! i wonder what wud be first item in FAQ
if such system actually put in place..
1) how do i find out ID of hot babe on seat B17?
Tejas:
This again could be included in your very personal touch screen display, albeit with the passenger's permission.
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