Because my co-worker Lynn told me she was going to be able to hang out with the Yellow Arrow team at the GEL Conference next month, and because I'm not going, I signed up to order 20 stickers to post during my upcoming travels.

Basically YellowArrow.org issues weatherproof 4 3/4" yellow arrow stickers printed with unique alphanumeric ID codes. You can order up to 40 stickers at a time for $20. While you're out and about, you plant a sticker at a location and take a photo of it. Later, back at a desktop computer, you register the sticker on the web site with the photo, comment and map location.

From then on, other people who walk by the newly-registered sticker can use the unique code to send a comment via SMS to YellowArrow.org's special phone number to be associated with that arrow. People can also send an SMS query with the arrow ID to the phone number to see what others have said about the arrow or it's location. It's essentially an electronic message board thread attached to a physical location.

Brilliant!

I read about Yellow Arrows in Wired last fall, and it looks like they are gearing up for bigger operations this summer.

- mike lee - baltimore