Sometime back I had a heated debate with my friend Alex of Intervangelist fame about the future of local digital search on phones and awareness. Alex had the views that Google is working on something on the android phones where the search of the things around you is instant and they are much ahead of the pack. I did vigorously disagree with that view but I have to confess that my point of argument then was based on emotion and not real alternative. You know the feelings that someone from Kenya should be able to crack something better.  Yes, I know, I talk a lot about local these days but you have to understand my feelings with state of affairs. You just have to believe that we can do way much  better

A few days later, I came to learn about  AroundMe done by James Mwai (@jmwai). Well, I have known James Mwai for some time and always knew one of these fine days he will come up with something cool.    True to that he has. AroundMe allows you to easily and quickly find important businesses and services in your surrounding or any other location with your Nokia phone. For example, you can find restaurants, banks, gas stations, and other local services with ease. Users are able to view maps, directions, routes, street view, read reviews or call the business if contacts are available. Very cool.

James revealed to me on a phone chat that the interest on the app around the world is just phenomenon.  In the last three weeks the app has been downloaded more than 17,000 times.

He listed to me the top ten countries leading in downloading the app as follows

#1 India

#2 Italy

#3 Germany

#4 Thailand

#5 Turkey

#6 United Kingdom

#7 Brazil

#8 Spain

#9 Russian Federation

#10 Australia

Yeah, the app was done with Kenya in mind but as you can see, Kenya is not even in the picture.

Currently it runs on Symbian^3 and S60 devices. More devices are in the road map including s40 which will give more people access to the app.  Good stuff