The intro screen to "Boise Live"

by Dallan Wright

My iPhone has become a major part of my life. I’m actually typing this post on the phone with a Wordpress app I downloaded through the app store.  Other than posting pictures it’s actually better and faster than logging into Rexburbia through a computer.  Recently I checked to see if there were any apps just as helpful and focused on Idaho –  and here’s what I found.

“Boise Live: Social Media for the City of Trees” is a media playing app for the website http://boiselive2.connexsus.com/ It listed itself as social media for the Boise area but I found it to be non-existent on the social aspect and slim on the entertainment.

Basically after installing the app you have to log into their website and sign up for a user account. Most applications let you register while in the app instead of using an external website but this one is on the clunky side of things.   You have to open a browser and try to remember the long URL, because they didn’t make a link you could click on (and until iPhone 3.0 comes out today you can’t copy and paste). Registration was fairly simple at that point and after returning to the app I entered the login information and was ready to take it for a spin.

I was expecting some sort of Boise social tools that bring people from the area together but instead only found a couple movie reviews of independent shows playing in local theaters and around six or seven wine reviews.  Other than that there’s nothing else to do with it.  From what I can tell this application only plays videos from their website.

Screenshot from one of the wine review videos.

I then hopped over to the website to do a little more investigating and found hardly any content, and the content that was there looked to be test files and test comments. Furthermore, when you delete the “boiselive2″ from the front of the URL you discover that connexsus.com is a generic layout that anyone can use.  It appears Boise Live went “live” with an iPhone App another company created for it and did not prepare any content of its own for people to immerse themselves into.  The introduction is fairly high quality but it seems they started on a good idea and never completed it.

There is no contact information, there are no F.A.Q.’s, and there is no reason to hang around Boise Live for more than five minutes.  There may be more content in coming months, and a direction they’re moving towards, but for now this Idaho based app is a bust.