InHawaiiNow.com, a new Web site by my very good friends Shane Robinson and Roxanne Darling of Barefeet Studios, tries to answer that question using real-time Twitter updates from users in Hawaii who generally cover specific topics.
Example: Want to know what is going on in the music scene tonight in Hawaii? Check out the music category. By doing so I found out via Dr. Trey that tonight, from 6 to 9 at Jimmy Buffet’s I could have listened to Mailani Makainai.
Too bad I’m not on Oahu at the moment. 🙁
As more Twitter users that are in Hawaii added to the site its value is sure to skyrocket. I think the real time searches of the entire Twitterverse add even more value. Such as anyone that has recently mentioned Hawaii on Twitter. I’d love to see more geographic areas and keyword searches added to the list. This way when you’re out and about you can find on what is going on in the area you are, rather than just in Hawaii in general. With a little hacking of the URL you can do this yourself. I did a quick hack for Hanauma Bay (one of my favorite places on the planet). But imagine if you could quickly find out [where everyone was surfing today](http://inhawaiinow.com/tag/hawaii surf/). Valuable, marketable, and useful stuff.
I’m sure Barefeet Studios has many more ideas for InHawaiiNow. I’m glad Hawaii has a service like this and I think many travel destinations should definitely consider doing something similar – perhaps somehow even on their official sites for their area.
A more geeky reason that I like this site is because Shane used Code Igniter, a PHP MVC framework, that I rather adore. More on this later.