To bring Italy into the 21st century, yet keep the traditions of the past has been a problem that savvy tourism entrepreneurs in Umbria (who live there.) have embraced by establishing/creating apps which promote the finest aspects of their regional culture: food, wine, museums, antiquities, wineries, restaurants, recipes. Who better than a native to introduce you to the best of the best in the region.

In Italian, Italiano, one noted app, Umbria Slow reveals the undiscovered region of central Italy, taking you off the well known city journeys in Venice, Florence and Rome. Other apps of Umbria offer maps and guides.

The best app of Umbria to date is comprehensive, current and downloadable for Android, iPhone 5 and all tablets. It is the UmbriaApp. This app has within its Home, 19 specific sub apps. One sub app, Umbria Enogastronomia, includes 14 beautifully illustrated native Umbrian recipes complete with information about the origins of each dish, its ingredients, and detailed instructions on how to prepare it. The app also offers a number of itineraries illustrated with photos and videos, through which you can explore the local environment, landscape, history and architecture.There are the regional wines, wineries, their breakdown of specific red and white wines, the grape varietals and other details about the vintners.

If you're interested in the world renown Spoleto Festival, the music sub app lists that event and gives detailed information in an overview about its background and includes everything you want to know along with insider's tips. The same is covered for the Jazz Festival in Umbria and numerous other highlighted events throughout the year. One sub app is of the museums (There are 62 in Umbria) with pictures of famous works in each and listings of what to see and where and when. There is an app of how to tour Umbria by bike. It contains a GPS track and total of 71 possible routes with each itinerary graded according to difficulty. Pther sub apps delve specifically into the region, its parks, products and places to visit including restaurants and shops.

The Umbria App and the 19 sub apps will be available in English next week in Google Play store and Apple's iTunes.

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Buycott App

Buycott App Goes Viral and is Pulled. Traffic Crashes Website

Author: Carole Di Tosti.
Published: May 20, 2013 at 6:42 am

It's a dream come true. You develop an app that everyone wants and the traffic to use it is phenomenal. It's a nightmare come true! You receive tremendous media publicity, there's a rush for downloads but your app has to be pulled because it's not capable of dealing with mega-traffic.
The Android version of the new Buycott smartphone app even brought down the company’s website last week.
Initially, the free app was fine. Folks downloaded it so they could buy products in keeping with their principles. Buycott helped them find out which companies made products by scanning their barcodes. Buycott traced codes to their top parent companies and cross-checked them against social advocacy campaigns. Consumers could easily tell if the company was one they favored or one that was engaging in cruelty to animals or other negative behaviors. But then app users were looking to boycott the Koch brothers and Monsanto, so they were checking company affiliations with both and traffic grew.
After a media blitz about the app, Buycott's popularity skyrocketed. At its peak it reached No. 10 in the Google Play store and requests exceeded 100 downloads per minute. No one was ready for this cataclysm and they pulled the app. Developer, 26-year-old Ivan Pardo of Los Angeles explained on the company's FB page that they were working 24/7, moving to a server configuration that could deal with the traffic.

During this work through, it is hoped that some of the problems identified by social media users in their feedback to the company will be ironed out. For example, "Burt's Bees' parent company is Proctor & Gamble which tests with animals.The app doesn't identify this conflict. But it will identify (after you join Demand GMO Labeling) whether a product was made by one of the 36 corporations donating over $150,000 to stop labeling GMOs.

Since the app is not spun to a particular mind set, it can be used to patronize and promote companies that back GMO labeling or a company like Starbucks which has supported the LBGT movement. The empowering beauty of Buycott is that it gives information and allows users to make informed decisions about their choices. In effect, the app can strengthen consumer buying power to bend corporate accountability to consumer will. It may even level the playing field and bring greater competition to the market place.
But first it needs to straighten out the kinks in addition to dealing with mega-traffic. It's not perfect (It's still available for iPhone). Corporate structures change, constant updating must be made and it likely won't be able to identify EVERY retail product.