Telling wry stories with Google Maps

Did you know the people have downloaded more than three billion of those little programs, or applications, that have been written for the iPhone? But what's more incredible, I find, is that when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in January 2007, there were no such things as "apps", as the programs are now called. Their popularity tells us something very important about today's new communication technologies: nobody, not even the makers, has any idea what people will do with them. But, if people like them, they'll use them to create the most amazing stuff.

Take Google Maps. What began in February 2005 as a planner for travelling on foot, by car or by public transport turned into something much bigger when Google allowed people to integrate Google Maps with their own data. Here's an example: Thirty-two years ago, Dinty Moore, a very stoned student, was given the job of picking up the famous journalist George Plimpton from a train station and taking him to the University of Pittsburgh, where he was scheduled to give a talk. Moore now tells his wry story in a Google Maps adventure called "Mr. Plimpton's Revenge".

"As is so often the case when one picks up a famous writer, I didn't know what to say, but I couldn't stop talking."

I don't think that storytelling is what the makers of Google Maps had in mind when they launched the product, but there are no limits to human creativity. Just ask Steve Jobs.