Update: New Online Maps

It seems too many people are tapping Transport for London’s feeds and I’m sure one big users site is Matthew Somerville’s noted below. (Even my non-geography friend Gary was “wowed” by it.) So, as of yesterday TFL shut down the feed to up capacity. Nice problem to have!

1ST JULY 2010
Owing to overwhelming demand by apps that use the service, the London Underground feed has had to be temporarily suspended. We hope to restore the service as soon as possible but this may take some days. We will keep everyone informed of progress towards a resolution.

- London Datastore Blog via Gary’s Bloggage

—- original post 6/23/10——

It was June 15 when Transport for London changed its terms of use of its data. Just a week later new apps for finding and tracking various subway and bus stops and routes were available. Among them is one from Matthew Somerville, “a former civil servant now working for MySociety, the organisation behind various data-based democracy websites like TheyWorkForYou, WriteToThem and FixMyStreet.” His map provides real time locations (though there are data errors).

- Telegraph

The State of Maryland can’t seem to go a day without offering yet another map on its now well-known ArcGIS Server implementation. This time it’s the Visit Maryland Map which went live last Friday.

The map was developed through a collaboration between the Division of Tourism, Film and the Arts, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) and the Department of Planning (MDP). The map is inspired by the broad array of tools offered by the state that use mapping technology from Arc GIS like Greenprint and Agprint, to pull in state data and create a rich consumer experience. The platform provides one place to see the various systems of assets layer and inter-relate, and provides a virtual touring map of Maryland.

- CivSource Online

Pinellas County, Florida built its own local crime map based on data from several departments. It’s built on Google Maps. The left hand “directions” begins with “if no crime data is being displayed…” and offers suggestions about changing filters. Not noted, but apparently required: largest scale. There’s seems to be a scale dependence requirement, too.

The reported offenses include: burglary, assault, theft, and drug possession.  Residents can research up to one year of criminal activity to date.

The Web site ... allows citizens not only to readily access crime information, but to use that information when making decisions on moving into or buying property in a particular community. It also provides important information about crime trends for Neighborhood Watch groups or community associations.

- TBN Weekly

Update 2: Chinese Nav Data Provider Offers IPO

Share price rose 8% on the first day out, yesterday. “AutoNavi on Wednesday priced shares of its IPO at the top end of the expected range, selling 8.625 million American Depositary Shares for $12.50 each, raising about $107.8 million.”

- Reuters

—- update 7/1/10—-

The IPO is live today. The initial public offering of 8,625,000 American depositary shares (’‘ADSs’‘), each representing four ordinary shares of the Company, was priced at $12.50 per ADS. The ADSs will begin trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on July 1, 2010 under the symbol “AMAP.”

- press release

—- original post 6/10/10——

AutoNavi Holdings Ltd., a venture-backed provider of maps and navigation services in China, filed Wednesday to raise up to $100 million through an initial public offering of American depositary shares.

The company offers a digital-map database that covers 2.8 million kilometers of roadway in China for nav, online and wireless apps. The money will fund facilities for research and data processing.

The company has applied to list on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol AMAP. Underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC, Oppenheimer & Co. and Pacific Crest Securities.

- Wall Street Journal

LBS Tidbits

MobileBeat (a conference/competition from VentureBeat) hosts 20 companies to “battle it out” for Tesla Awards (and more importantly, buzz). Among the location-focused of the finalists, which are picked not for “cool” but for market potential:

POIdo
A pay-per-action location-based advertising platform providing ads targeted to mobile and Web users’ precise location, context, and behavior.

Micello
Aims to power the emerging hyperlocal, indoor location-based services ecosystem.

Locomatix
Locomatix enables brands to build their own location-based apps, create new services for existing local content aggregators, or deliver new capabilities to merchants through platforms like Facebook.

Mytalk
A mobile tool available on any Internet-enabled device that allows you to connect with other people based on location and similar interests, and with businesses based on location and need.

AppCitylife
One part Yellow Pages, one part Fodor’s, and one part 311 — with local promotions and content. Actionable logos within city guides, mini-apps within multiple guides for major events or companies, and dirt-cheap promotions are just a few of the ways AppCitylife serves local and national clients.

Motolingo
A mobile-apps provider that connects your fuel tank and other car data with the cloud for smarter service and travel. It connects your car’s computer to mobile phones to find out whether you’ll make it to your destination and get fair-priced service.

- VentureBeat (note to VB: Why no links to the finalists’ websites?)

A white hat coder (“good guy”) found a hole in Foursquare’s implementation that allowed him to identify checkin’s via a venue’s “who’s been here” section. Foursquare says it’s been fixed.

- TechCrunch

Directory network Local.com has acquired Octane360, a domain-based local ad firm that aims its services at small businesses, domain portfolio owners, agencies and publishers. The terms of the deal call for Irvine, CA.-based Local.com to pay Octane360 $5 million in cash and stock with an earnout of up to $5.9 million. The earnout is tied to unspecified performance benchmarks within a two-year period following the closing.

- PaidContent

In other Foursquare news, it’s time for version 1.9 for iOS4. It has maps, but no background processing - yet.

The new map view allows you to see avatar representations of your Foursquare friends overlaid on a Google Map. You can also hit the locator button to show off where you are and see which friends are actually closest to you. Clicking on their images brings a pop-up that shows their current location (which you can click on to go to that location’s page in the app).

- TechCrunch

ReadWriteWeb provides an overview (buggy but cool, in short) of yet another check-in aggregator, FootFeed.

- ReadWriteWeb