Groundcrew.us

OK, this is supposed to be cool, but as of right now (2:30p, 9/16) their site, groundcrew.us is down. Sigh. Anyway, it's an interesting idea based around location, altruism, and serendipity. You're supposed to join and check off the sorts of things you're interested in (public art, random acts of kindness, etc) and then either start a project and enlist members to help you or help out other people who have started projects in a specific place. The interface for finding people is based off the Google Maps satellite view and I believe it stores your home address and then twitters/emails/whatevers you when someone is trying to start something. If I'm a little sketchy about the actual usage, it's because I was browsing it last night, thought it was cool, and figured I'd dig into today to learn more. But the site is down. So I'm riffing off what I recall.

Bottom line: I think it's a nice idea but I wonder if anyone would actually use it for something they really want to get done. I think it's too complicated in its current state -- you have to activate yourself and do all sorts of shit just to accept or start something. Talking to someone who's been on it for a couple weeks, I asked him how many things he'd participated in or started. Answer: none.