Heart and Sole - How happy is the Internet?

There's this event in Bournemouth called Meetdraw (I may have mentioned it before) where you get to meet a lot of lovely media and design people over a few beers. Well during the last one we had a rather lovely gentleman pitching the idea of Heart and Sole to us.

Heart and Sole is another networking event held at the end of January in the Spinnaker Tower. Chance to get to meet a lot of nice, new people and enjoy a trip to Portsmouth. Hoorah. But where the fun comes in is the competition. There will be come sort of awesome prize if you make the best thing, whatever it may be. Could be a web app, could be a design for something. Whatever you like. It's judged purely on awesomeness.

Well, I don't need to be told twice to make something awesome. So I got thinking. With all the work I've got to be getting on with, I think I've come up with something that couples a few things I've wanted to try out anyway with the opportunity to win something. About as awesome as a double rainbow, I'm sure you'll agree.

So Matt. What have you been planning?

Good question, my unusually vocal reader. It's been knocking around in my head to make something that serves no purpose other than for fun. You click on it, it makes you smile. So I'm asking the question "How happy is the Internet right now?"

It couples work I've wanted to do with dynamic content with APIs and something that's just a simple bit of fun.

What are the ingredients?

I'm not going to go all cheesy and tell you what "the main ingredients for baking my ideal project" would be, but it's close. It's bullet points.

• Makes use of Twitter, Flickr, Foursquare or any other relevant API I can find to pull in content.
• Should require little or no user identification to visit. Should be a smooth transition into what's happening.
• Can't take long to load. Perhaps show something basic if loading might take a while.
• Looks pretty and inviting. Have a "I'd have that as a screensaver" quality to it.
• Maybe a map element to it? Where in the world is the happiest, that sort of thing.
• Possibly a light-weight version to display on websites?
• Cross-browser. Meaning, I'm afraid, no Flash. Sad face.

What happens now?

Well, I've got a lot of things up in the air right now. Designs might take a while to come in, but I'll post them on here when I make them.

Right now it's just seeing what's feasible. Seeing what APIs give me what information with little hassle. I'll report back at a later date. Matt out.