In a large infographic MapQuest shared a variety of stats related to number of routed miles in six months of 2011 (and its equivalence in moon visits, etc.), whether women or men use the service more (women do) and popular searches. There's also a map of the use of MapQuest on Black Friday. Most valuable numbers are at the bottom: how it ranks among other services.
- MapQuest Blog
Newly-released Android app
ObscuraCam lets users pixelize faces and strip metadata from internet video.
It also strips out GPS data so citizen journalists and activists can protect themselves and/or those they cover. Of course, those simply concerned about personal privacy can use it, too. An earlier release suported just still pictures and a sibling will add in more data using the mobile device's sensors. The app is in the Knight New Challenge.
Telenav, Inc. begins offering its free Scout for Apps service, an HTML5, browser-based, voice-guided turn-by-turn GPS navigation service, to all mobile web and app developers. Optimized for iOS now, Android later.
by Adena Schutzberg on 03/27 at 04:50 AM |
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Google announced a Public Alerts page on Jan 25. The idea is to keep you informed of emergency alerts for floods, tornadoes, winter storms, and other dangers that may be headed your way. But, it's completely query driven, not location-based in this first attempt. Google is seeking feedback. Mano Marks noted on Twitter he'd worked on this project in the past.
- Google Blog
MapQuest launched an HTML5 client.
- press release
Adam Sadilek of the University of Rochester has developed a tool to predict one's location based on friend's locations known through Twitter. How well? It can locate you to within 100 meters with up to 85% accuracy.
"You can actually infer a lot of things about people, even though they are pretty careful about how they manage their online behaviour," he reports.
- New Scientist
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/26 at 05:30 AM |
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Esri offers a statement on the future of its APIs, in response to recent announcements from Adobe regarding Flash for Mobile and runors about Silverlight.
We’re committed to providing the best technology for GIS developers and giving choices from the most widely used developer platforms in the market. By offering many options, we enable developers to address different customer needs and expectations. Our commitment is not based on a specific technology, but based on supporting the GIS developer regardless of the platform chosen. Each of these areas: JavaScript/HTML 5, Flex, Silverlight, and native application code, gain significant improvements in the upcoming ArcGIS 10.1 release.
- ArcGIS Server Blog via @cageyames
MapQuest offers some unlimited and less limited APIs no doubt in (rather late) response to Google's plan to charge for high transaction users. Thefully unlimited access option is the free Community Edition licence built on OpenStreetMap. Read the blog post and the licenses to be sure you understand the restrictions.
- MapQuest Dev Blog via @cageyames
I expected a stronger response from the mapping API providers to Google's announcement about fees for heavy users, but perhaps most realized the population impacted is not all that large. Still, Search Engine Land offered an alternative via a post from a the company behind Chitika Maps (never heard of it).The hook? The company "pays you" to use its API via ads on the maps.
- Search Engine Journal
by Adena Schutzberg on 11/18 at 03:00 AM |
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Last week MapQuest (owned by AOL's Huffington Post division) launched the beta version of its social network (press release). Here's what it does per the AP (as reported on HuffPo, just to be "meta"):
The company says mqVibe uses algorithms to produce real-time rankings of 50,000 neighborhoods in 27,000 U.S. cities. It also lists the best-ranked places for dining, shopping, beauty and spas, health, lodging and other services.
Rankings are based on user votes and what the company describes as interactions on MapQuest.com and external data.
That's not exactly what I gleaned from early peaks into the network, but clearly MapQuest wants to tap into the human need to list and rank things and places. I note with some irony how rankings are somehow related to "interactions" on the site itself. Does that mean if you want to rank your site higher, you better get on MapQuest?
Glenn Letham at GISUser desribes the network as "much anticipated " He explored the beta and "so far I'm very impressed!" He likes the Facebook integration (you sign in via Facebook Connect) and that visitors can select areas by neighborhood (my first thought: who's neighborhood data are they using?). Once you find places of interest, you can give them "thumbs up" or "down" and leave a comment. And, then comes the social part: the ability to share the comment with Facebook friends organized by geography! Those in the area are at the top of the list for sharing. He points to an area for improvement: adding a new business not yet in the rankings.
Greg Serling at Search Engine Watch writes "Conceptually I like what MapQuest is doing although the first “iteration” isn’t necessarily going to win a lot of converts from Google Maps." Sterlings like the UI, maps and images of the neighborhoods and the browsing focus rather than a search one (that's yet to come). He notes that unlike other hyperlocal efforts (including EveryBlock) MapQuest doesn't really need a business model save driving traffic to/from its other properties. " MapQuest also expects neighborhood-related queries on Google to generate direct traffic as well. MapQuest will also leverage Patch as a content source and potentially integrate MQ Vibe into Patch sites in the future. There are many interesting possibilities."
Programmable Web notes that the API is not yet formally available, but it's there. There are already developers using it!
All the other coverage I read simply rehashed what MapQuest said in its press release or on the website. I read about 20 articles on it. I found exaclty one comment. Twitter has been rather quiet, too.
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/18 at 03:00 AM |
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ReadWriteWeb has the inside track (if there is one) on MQVibe, but I for one can't imagine this will take off.
The aim, best I can tell is to create neighborhood reviews, aka local ratings for businesses and restaurants. It's knit into Facebook and you can invite your friends.
Who is this for? MapQuest users? I'm not sure of the demographic but I imagine older folks and older businesses who use their "find my store" tools. Facebook users? Are they not too busy playing Zynga games?
That said, I love the idea of linking this in to Patch and/or OpenStreetMap, but there's no word on that sort of integration for now.
- ReadWriteWeb
- RWW on MQVibe back in Sept
by Adena Schutzberg on 10/12 at 12:35 PM |
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