Quick admin note:
“IDEA BLOG” is my new post type for random thoughts, ideas, and musings. If anyone has any suggestions for a better name for these posts, please give me a shout.

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I am super picky about going to the gym when it is too crowded. I hate it. I like to keep my workouts quick and efficient…no waiting. barely any resting. heart-rate up. in and out. done.

But, of course, it’s January and everyone and their mother seems to have joined my local gym in some annual New Year’s resolution ritual. So, the gym has been pretty packed as of late. The other day, I got back from a particularly annoying crowded workout and I turned to Linds and said, “I wish the gym had a webcam up in the workout areas and put a feed on their website so I could check the crowd situation.” That’d be pretty rad, right?

Given some of the sour faces I see when people are waiting for machines, I know I can’t be the only one annoyed by the crowds at the gym. And why stop with the gym…what about grocery stores? Anyone who has spent time at Trader Joe’s in New York could probably relate. So why can’t I just log on to a website to see how crowded it is?

It seems like it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to get this up and running for most gyms and local businesses. Most of them have some kind of website, and most have some kind of cameras already up for security purposes. I think the key questions are 1) how to scale it 2) privacy issues of patrons and 3) whether or not the business actually WANTS potential customers to see how crowded it is. That last one is key, but I could see this being a crowd-pleaser (no pun intended) and, therefore, a business pleaser too.

I think I may be onto something here. Thoughts?