Latest news with #InternetRoadtrip
Boston Globe
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
How an imaginary roadtrip through Maine drove real traffic to Bowdoin's student radio station
Advertisement 'I quickly pulled up our servers' logs and on the graph, everything is spiked,' Daugherty said, adding that the station's listeners had jumped 100 times the normal audience. He had to tweak the station's servers, which had reached maximum capacity. 'I'm like, wow, this is kind of insane.' In an era where online connection can often turn hostile, 'Internet Roadtrip' is a throwback to an earlier, friendlier version of the web that features simple and soothing graphics, forces fun collaboration among strangers, and lacks the pesky pop-ups and banner advertisements that can clutter online games. And it's brought WBOR, whose programming seldom reaches listeners outside of coastal Maine, an unlikely legion of new fans. Advertisement The station's DJs joined the Discord online chat connected to the game to chat with users, take song requests, and make recommendations on where to travel next, earning the station the adoration of the game's players. Many sport display names such as 'wbor is love' or 'WBOR convert.' 'It's nice to feel validated by thousands of strangers that what we're doing is not in vain or pointless, and that it does still hold pretty deep relevance — especially in the context of streaming and competing mediums,' Daugherty said. The game moved out of range of WBOR on Thursday morning, but its legacy has lived on in the Discord chats. 'WBOR was our guide through Maine. The voice from afar that showed us the wonders of the state,' one user posted. A look inside the studio of Bowdoin's student radio station, WBOR. Courtesy of WBOR Neal Agarwal, who created 'Internet Roadtrip' on his site He said he was inspired to build 'Internet Roadtrip' by online group gaming experiences such as a Twitch stream where users 'I grew up in the era of flash games on the internet, and that era of weirdness and possibility is something I definitely want to capture on my site,' Agarwal said. 'I think the web is an amazing creative medium that isn't being used to its full potential.' In 'Internet Roadtrip,' players can vote every few seconds on what the car does next: drive forward, make a turn (when available), honk, or change the radio station. Results are tallied live in a window at the top right corner of the screen. There's also a live map and windows designed like green and white street signs showing the current town and thoroughfare of the imaginary car. Advertisement The game started on Boston's Tremont Street, next to the Common, on May 6. Agarwal is based in New York and said he doesn't have any connection to Boston, but wanted to begin in a coastal city. He figured that would give users the option of going on a cross-country trip, and he wanted a city for players to get the feel for the game before venturing to rural areas. The game moved south, crossing through Rhode Island, and then drove north again, eventually hitting Interstate 495 in Hopkinton and finding its way to New Hampshire and then Maine. Many players wanted to go Canada, while others have aired preferences for excursions to sites such as Stephen King's house. Fights over the direction of the car can be seen in the wild turns and circuitous side trips that the car took to Mount Desert Island and Bangor. When in Bar Harbor, users drove the digital car into the ocean, taking advantage of a Google Street View glitch. Daugherty threw on Ween's 'Ocean Man' to commemorate the splash. Players even steered the car to WBOR's station in Brunswick, creating what Bowdoin senior and WBOR DJ Janet Briggs said 'I'm about to play like a Jacques Brel, like, literally a French jazz album that none of these people are going to want to listen to, while they're trying to get me to play Minecraft music,' Briggs said. 'It actually ended up being kind of funny. It was a live jazz album that had a bunch of clapping and weird crescendos. It's very theatrical.' Advertisement Users showed their appreciation, and excitement about the moment, by several rounds of honking. Then she started taking song requests. 'I Aidan Ryan can be reached at
TechCrunch
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- TechCrunch
Thousands of people have embarked on a virtual road trip via Google Street View
It's Friday afternoon and I'm listening to Bowdoin College's radio station, interspersed with ambient car honking noises. I am not in Maine. I am not in a car. I am at my desk. This is Internet Roadtrip. Internet Roadtrip is what I will call a MMORTG (massive multiplayer online road trip game). Neal Agarwal, the game's creator, calls it a 'roadtrip simulator.' Every ten seconds, viewers vote on what direction for the 'car' to drive on Google Street View — or, you can vote to honk the horn or change the radio station. The direction with the most votes gets clicked, and the car continues on its scenic path to … wherever the chat decides to go. Internet Roadtrip is reminiscent of Twitch Plays Pokémon, an iconic stream from over 10 years ago in which viewers voted on what button to press as part of a collective Pokémon Red game. But Internet Roadtrip is far less chaotic — both because only a thousand or so people are playing at a time, and because we have better organizational tools than we did in the Twitch Plays Pokémon era (thank you, Discord). A radio station in Maine (WBOR) is currently curating songs for us in the in-game radio — Neal Agarwal (@ 2025-05-12T19:56:38.315Z Progress on the virtual roadtrip is slow. The car moves at a pace slower than walking. Discord moderators have had to temper newcomers' expectations, explaining that it's pointless to suggest driving to Las Vegas from Maine, since it would likely take almost 10 months of real world time to get there. The same goes for Alaska, but it's not just a matter of time that's the issue. 'Google Street View works by taking multiple pictures and putting them together. In some areas of the roads leading to Alaska, there are gaps in pictures available and so we would get stuck there, were we to go to these roads,' the Discord FAQ reads. 'All potential roads to Alaska have these gaps. We checked.' There is no objective on Internet Roadtrip, as opposed other Street View-based games like GeoGuessr. Some Discord members discussed driving to Canada, which is a somewhat realistic goal, given our current position in Maine. But the destination isn't the goal — it's the joy of spontaneously listening to college radio from a liberal arts school with a thousand strangers on the internet, while taking in the scenic backroads of Blue Hill, Maine.
The Drive
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Drive
1,000 People Are 'Driving' Across the US One Photo at a Time on Google Maps
The latest car news, reviews, and features. As you're reading this, nearly 1,000 people are traveling across the United States in the same car. It's not a real car, of course; it's Street View-based software called Internet Roadtrip, made by developer Neal Agarwal, and the road-trippers vote every couple of seconds to decide where they're headed off to next. The journey began in Boston, Massachusetts earlier this month, and there's absolutely no telling where it will go or when it will end. The interface is refreshingly simple. Most of the screen is taken up by images collected from Google Maps, a small steering wheel that moves, and arrows that indicate where the car can go. The column on the right side of the screen provides real-time details such as how many drivers are online, the number of votes that each option is getting (sounding the horn is surprisingly unpopular), and the number of miles driven since the beginning of the road trip (about 450 as of writing). There's also a live chat which reminds me of the chat rooms that were popular in the 2000s, both in terms of the design and in terms of the random shit people digitally blurt out, and a radio at the bottom. If you want to 'drive,' it's as easy as clicking on an arrow. Open the site, click on the direction that you want to take the car in, wait about four seconds for the other drivers to make a choice, and the steering wheel will veer in the direction that receives the most votes. Every intersection spawns a heated debate in the old-school chat. Of course, sometimes there's only one way to move: Forward. You can't shift into reverse, for better or worse. You even have to vote to change the radio station because, remember, everyone's in the same car. It's kind of hard to go anywhere on purpose when people keep pulling the car into strip mall parking lots. Internet Roadtrip There has to be at least some sociological and philosophical value in this experiment. Beyond that, the Internet Roadtrip is a cool way to see the country, and discover sights that you likely would have never stumbled upon otherwise. The car's in Scarborough, Maine, at the time of writing, not terribly far from the Canadian border. What will happen if we get there? Will we keep driving and explore the Great White North, or head back south? Nothing moves especially fast on this road trip, but we may not have to wait long to find out. Shoutout to the developer's many other games and absurd curiosities over at Got tips? Send 'em to tips@
