Zhiing Road Tested

My 7800 mile journey


There are very few times you get to road test a products claim. The mobile application Zhiing has, as it’s a motto “It’s a Big World, Don’t Get Lost”. On January 5th I set out on a trip across the country to attend the inauguration and film a documentary. Our film is called Barack Nation the Journey for Change. And our band of 6 people would be in places we had never been before trying to make a film. Having as many tools as possible to help us was really important. Jon Ziskind from Zhiing was helping us with technology for this trip.

I used my Zhiing app everywhere and everyday. There are things that come up everyday while traveling:

-Where to eat?
-How to find the Hotel?
-How to find the people you are meeting for business (or filming)
-How to find the rest of the group you are traveling with?

What I have learned about myself with technology applications is that they need to fit into my daily or weekly habits, make something quicker and simple that has annoyed me and be something I like sharing with friends. So the only applications for my iPhone I used on my trip were Zhiing and Urban Spoon. I wish Zhiing was part of Urban Spoon. The directions on Spoon are not very good.

After a week or so of using my Zhiing in all these unfamiliar places I noticed that instead of arriving at a new place and feeling uncomfortable knowing that I had my application with me I felt more secure. I am a proactive person and I like to know what’s happening and plan for it – this application was a great assistant for my style on the road.

We had one day on the trip when we could not use our Zhiing. It was the inauguration day and our group got separated on the Metro in D.C. The second group did not have the other iphone. Trying to find one another without the Zhiing in that crazy city was impossible. We had become use to just zhiinging one another. We met up hours later but I know we all had a new appreciation for easy Zhiing makes finding someone in strange city.


Returning home I see some app’s in the iTunes Store that do separate functions of LBS needs. Finding you a cab etc. My wish list is for Zhiing to put it all in one place for me. Using 5 different LBS app’s is not appealing.

It’s not very often you can test something on the road this way – it was terrific and it actually works.