I Have Questionable Content… Woo-Hoo!
For somebody who didn’t even know what an app was a few short months ago, it’s amazing, but now I am one. That’s right, there’s an iPhone app, specializing in Gay Rehoboth and apptly named Rehomo. It’s just been released and I am one of its authors.
Which is hilarious, because if I hadn’t been asked to help write an app I probably wouldn’t even know what one was. If, like me, you are a technophobe (or tardy adopter compared to the folks who try new stuff right away and are called Early Adopters), here’s the skinny: An “app” is shorthand for a software application for today’s mobile smart phones. iTunes is an app; so is the CBS news I get on my phone and the addictive bubble breaker game I can’t keep my paws off.
Our Rehomo app is kind of a tourist guidebook, like Damron’s, or Fodor’s but it’s written by locals—me and my friend and fellow Letters from CAMP Rehoboth writer Rich Barnett. We wanted to make sure it got done locally instead of by some tourism company without a real clue about what to do and where to go and what to see in gay Rehoboth. You get my picks, Rich’s picks, and all the good stuff about Gay Rehoboth.
So how the heck did I, old-fashioned publisher, get to write an app? Rich called me last winter to ask about it and after he got through tutoring me on twenty first century life, I signed on. We’re talking app ground floor here. This was my chance to be avant garde.
Okay, who am I kidding? My idea of avant garde was to finally buy BlackBerry when everybody else was already going Droid. But I hoped this might give me back my cool.
I haven’t tried regaining cool since I drove a dune buggy in the Caribbean. But now, instead of getting big clumps of mud in my eye, I get stars in my eyes. After all, I seem to have joined the ranks of (are you ready?) Ellen DeGeneres, Jessica Simpson and holy, cow, Lady Gaga with having my very own app. I hear there’s even an app for translating Sarah Palin’s sound bites into English.
Not that I’m going all Gaga, but it feels pretty cool for this old fuddy-duddy to have some contemporary street cred.
Now, lest you think this is a get-rich-quick-scheme, let me fill you in. If you have an iPhone, and iPad or an iPod Touch you can get the Gay Rehoboth Rehomo Beach App for $1.99 from the iTunes store.
Ha! After being split a bunch of ways, this means that in addition to not making a bundle in book publishing, I can now not make a bundle in app publishing. My career is nothing if not consistent.
But, in addition to the street cred, the App even gives me my naughty back. My favorite part of this whole adventure is how long it took us to get authorized by Apple Computer. Rich and I worked on the content and pictures last winter and into June, sending it off to our partners at Sutro Media in San Francisco, who then sent it along to Apple. Sutro told us it would take from two days to two weeks for Apple to review our work and approve it for sale at iTunes and the App stores.
So we waited and waited and waited. Nothing.
Finally, two months later we got the OK. The hold-up? To use Apple’s words, “Questionable Content.” We had mild references to nudity, alcohol and sex.
Of course we did, this is Rehoboth.
Frankly, I was very proud to have contributed to something with questionable content. Nothing like becoming a renegade the same month you get your first Social Security check.
Of course, then Apple went ahead and approved the app for ages 12 and up, so I guess the nudity and sex references were very mild indeed.
And I was especially excited since Rich and I envisioned the Rehomo app the same way—as the insider’s look at Rehomo Beach. And you get two very different looks in one app, because Rich and I have the market cornered on diverse opinions.
Rich came up with this description and I think it’s a hoot:
“This app is the result of a playful collaboration between authors Rich Barnett and Fay Jacobs.
Rich is a 6’3” Southerner. Fay is a 5’3” native New Yorker. She likes to eat out; he prefers to cook in. He drives a pickup truck and she motors about in a BMW. She lives with Schnauzers; he raises roses.
You might think these two writers have nothing in common, but you’d be wrong. Both are storytellers. They chronicle their lives and adventures in Rehoboth Beach, their adopted and beloved hometown, in books, blogs, and magazines (highlighted on this app of course!). And, they like to get together from time to time to hoist a cocktail or two and dream of literary success. She orders a Cosmo; he, a Manhattan.”
So there you have it. We’ve come up with a cool way to promote the things we love about Rehoboth.
So, if you have an iPhone or other iDevice, check out our Rehomo Beach app. I promise good advice, reviews and, coming soon, an updated calendar and even video. And if you don’t think it has the right stuff, you can send feedback and we will add some gayboy or dykedrama to suit. For your $1.99 you even get free updates.
And tell your friends with iStuff they can learn all about Gayberry RFD. Review us. Give us feedback and help keep this writer in the 21st century.
Hmmmm. An app by the people, of the people and for the people of Rehomo Beach. An apt app. I love it and I hope you will too.
Fay Jacobs is the author of As I Lay Frying—a Rehoboth Beach Memoir; Fried & True—Tales from Rehoboth Beach, and the soon to be released For Frying Out Loud—Rehoboth Beach Diaries. Contact her at www.fayjacobs.com.