By Ben Schiller

If, like me, you don't like a crowd, especially when you're doing something as mundane as shopping, you'll appreciate this app. It tells you when stores are likely to be full of people.

It's designed by an agency in the Netherlands, called They, and it works by analyzing location-aware services like Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter to see where humans are. You can then get a minute-by-minute reading: calm, not too busy, busy, very busy, and "forget it".

"Avoid The Shopping Crowds" is available only in four districts Amsterdam at the moment, but there's always hope it might be expanded more widely. They (the group) says it is the first in a series of "anti-social media" designed "to show you where all the cool people... aren't". Which sounds just great.

Comments