As a result of joining Foursquare and working with our client InteractiveGIS on GIS applications for business, I posited a formula for a Killer App.  According to Wikipedia, a Killer App is a "computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology."  Here's my current thinking on Killer Apps:

Game Mechanics + Social Networking + GIS + Business Data
+ Algorithm, Formula and/or Idea + Mobile = Killer App 

When the NewVa Corridor Technology Council newsletter arrived in my email inbox, as about one billion email newsletters do, I expected to scan, click a link or two, and delete.

I had an experience with the Tech Council's newsletter.

The newsletter arrived looking like this, but it opened with what writers labor over - a hook or lead that compels action - by Cory Donovan, Executive Director of the NCTC:  "If you were at last year's TechNite, you may still have an image in your head of me in baby clothes..."  The phrase "me in baby clothes" was highlighted as a link.  I found it  Killer App-necessary and desirable to click.

My click took me to this page.  It was all over after that.  I had to click.

Did I really want to see Cory in baby clothes?  I didn't know!  I wasn't conscious of choosing any more!  I was clicking!

Reeeaaally!  Yes!

Ha!  I laughed so hard!

My guess is that few readers made it this far down in this post.  The images above link to Cory's baby clothes pages on the NCTC site.  If anyone clicked on the images, they're on the NCTC site finding it "necessary" and "desirable" to have a Cory Killer App experience of their own!

I have data to back that up.  I asked Cory for the traffic numbers and he kindly supplied them.  A full 78% of those who clicked on the first page clicked all the way through to the dancing baby.

As to Cory's killer app proving the "core value of some larger technology," what it proved to me, again, is the large capacity for creativity of the mind of Mr. Cory B. Donovan.

I'm thinking of sending Cory a non-disclosure agreement.  I want that mind working on my Killer App.

***

*GIS stands for Geographic Information System, or Geospatial Information System.  For more ways to think about GIS, you're invited to read our series of posts featuring our client InteractiveGIS on Handshake 2.0.

Bet you gotta click!  I remember that dancing baby!  When when was that anyway?

Think you've got a mind for a GIS killer app?  Try out GIS out for yourself.

Handshake Media, Incorporated, parent company of Handshake 2.0, and InteractiveGIS, Inc. are both member companies of the NewVa Corridor Technology Council (NCTC).

InteractivGIS and the NewVa Corridor Technology Council, NCTC, are clients of Handshake Media, Incorporated, parent company of Handshake 2.0.