The You Say God Is Dead? There’s an App for That story in the New York Times, July 2, 2010, looks like an opportunity for topic maps.
For publishers, it would be possible to map responses on the basis of topics and let the topic map handle the details of where that is the appropriate response to an “opposing” app. It should shorten the update/production cycle as new material is added to counter new arguments or variations of old ones.
On the product side, publishers could use topic maps to enable users to respond to a variety of ways of naming or phrasing particular issues. In debates over religion, as in all other areas, differences in terminology can make it difficult to come to grips with the opposing side.
Depending on how it was implemented, a topic map app could integrate other resources, ranging from study materials to personal contacts as they relate to this application. Think of a topic map as being able to bridge between data held in mini-silos on an iPhone. So users could add in information into the app that was useful to them in such debates.
Any other critical points I should make as I contact publishers of these apps to recommend topic maps?
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PS: Did anyone with an iPhone try out tmjs from Jan Schreiber? I really don’t want to have to buy an iPhone just for that. Help me out here.
The tmjs unit tests run perfectly in Apples iPhone Simulator. I tried it together with PhoneGap, which is a framework for cross-platform mobile applications. My conclusion: the same code should also work on Android-based phones (and POSSIBLY on Blackberry phones).
Comment by Jan Schreiber — July 7, 2010 @ 6:18 am