This reads like the stereotypical college student who wants to change the world and make loads of money doing it. It's nice to have goals, but you cannot do both. You want to hire a company (spend money) to make an app. Where will you be getting the funding for this? Will it be for iPhone or Android? Will you charge for the app?

I would drop the 'app' idea completely. It sounds like you just learned a new buzzword from Business Marketing 101. Your customer-base is basically Freshman and shy sophomores. No cash-strapped college student is going to drop $.99 on an app that they can simply send a text to someone asking "hey, where is the Tri-Lamb house?" Take your school's freshman population, that's basically the MAXIMUM amount of people who will buy your app. Divide that in half, unless you are willing to make both Android AND iPhone apps. Divide that in half in again, as the amount of people who WON'T pirate your app. Multiply that by .99, and that's the MAXIMUM amount of money you'll earn. Minus your expenses for the company to make said app. And let's hope it works, if it doesn't, your app will be your "Walk of Shame" on a Saturday morning, and add a sizable amount of debt to your already mounting student loans.

You STILL want to do it? Do it yourself, and do it for the knowledge, not for the money. I spent over 15 hours on making the Global Event Tracker, not including every project before it just to get the knowledge to do it in 15 hours, about 5 people use it. If I were to charge $.99, there would be 1. Me.

If you are a Business major, then find a Comp Sci major to do it for you. You'd have better luck if you were FEMALE Business major. If you are a Comp Sci major, then do it for "the LOVE of the game".

You want to help the community? Go to these businesses and get them on Google Places. I hear Google already has a pretty good "interactive map". Have a camera? Add pictures.

If you were to do all this work for just your app, and it fails, the work could go to waste. You could do more good with your time/knowledge by helping already existing projects (like Google Places) by adding pictures, correcting landmarks, and editing places.

Your reply actually just reinforced the reason that I WANT to do this. The idea of this thread was to generate ideas for this, expand upon the topic, and to figure out by what means would work to get to the ends. Instead you simply read an idea, and instead of trying to improve it or make it work, you simply shot it down, bashed it, and made it sound like I am a selfish college student who knows nothing about the world.

This is why the app would be a good idea if ever done to completion. If you knew anything about how people work now a days they buy things based upon convenience and choose to live through the interface of technology more than social behavior. They do not want to ask questions like how to get to a campus building, they would simply want to find the answer on their own. And as I mentioned that is only the most basic use of it, where you never even asked or offered other ideas that take this beyond basic level.

"Where will the funds come from?" "Do it for knowledge and not money."

Now, did I ever once mention money in my post? No. I am not looking to make money off of this, it is just to gain experience to see if I can do it. However, your mind, much like that of the selfish markets, goes straight to worrying about money. All you simply did in the post above was address issues I ALREADY foresaw, instead of elaborating and expanding upon the idea like was my intent, illustrated in my concluding statement in the first post.

So do you care to help and expand knowledge, or critique and shut down every thought that might be a little bit different from what you think should be done?