Nomao – the place to bee
In: Other maps
31 Aug 2009
As a mapping service, we are always on the lookout for other websites that display information on a map. It’s always very inspiring to see how others use geolocalisation and community-driven content to build innovative and useful solutions.
Nomao is an interesting service that we’ve discovered recently. Their website allows you to search for businesses and other types of information on a specific location. You can look for a dentist in Paris, a hotel in New York or a club in Madrid. All the information is gathered from users: as a user you can add locations and rate existing locations (simply by clicking on an “i like” button). The platform can even sync with the preferences of your friends on facebook, which is a very interesting way of gathering information from targeted users. The map itself is also impressive: areas are colored in red, and each type of business has its own icon (hotels, bars, restaurants, events…).
Regarding data, I performed a simple test to see which countries have the most user inputs.
1. “restaurant, paris” = 12,145 results
2. “restaurant, berlin” = 2,514 results
3. “restaurant, london” = 983 results
4. “restaurant, new york city” = 91 results
5. “restaurant, tokyo” = 6 results
It’s safe to conclude that, as of today, nomao is strong in France, quite strong in Europe, but still weak in other parts of the world. Of course, we know that it takes quite some time to build a significant user base around the world… and since Nomao is currently looking for a country manager in the US, I guess they’re already trying to reach for countries outside Europe.
Nomao is a strong service in France with a great concept, and will probably manage to spread to other countries in the near future, but beware of competitors that are also trying to corner the market of localised search!
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- Tags: facebook, french, google api, nomao, social networking, startup
Geoviu online at www.geoviu.com !
In: About Geoviu
3 Aug 2009
And back again after 3 months of hard work on the Geoviu Beta version!
First of all, as you might have noticed since July 23rd, you can find Geoviu at the following address: www.geoviu.com. Geoviu is currently fully operational considering only its basic possibilities for now: showing the daily news from 4 sources (CNN, BBC, New York Times and France 24), auto updated every hour for the Hot News (star icons) and every 6 hours for the daily news (divided in 8 categories: politics, economy, sustainability, science, technology, society, culture and sports). Furthermore, you can use the Weekly Report (still developing it), showing the Hot News from the past 7 days.
Since Geoviu’s official launch 12 days ago, we started to advertize it by registering to many startup/entrepreneur/technological websites such as Dotopen (www.dotopen.com), Vator.tv (http://vator.tv), You Noodle (http://younoodle.com), Digg (http://digg.com) and social websites such as Twitter (www.twitter.com) and Facebook (www.facebook.com) with a Facebook Fan page on which we currently have 81 fans.
This led to 3 articles written on Geoviu, one German: http://www.buzinkay.net/blog-de/2009/07/geoviu-news-auf-der-weltkarte/ and two Italians : http://jacopofarina.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/geoviu-visualizzare-informazioni-e-news-su-una-mappa/ ; http://www.geekissimo.com/2009/08/01/visualizza-le-notizie-su-una-mappa-con-geoviu/, and Geoviu has now about 1320 references on Google.
What we are working on right now:
1-The platform:
a-finding a way to avoid having markers on top of each other;
b-pictures in infowindows;
c-a new widget with all the information in a grid format;
d-interactivity with our community (login, react to information, star the most important information to you).
2-The database:
a-adding new sources;
b-improving the Weekly Report;
c-working on the Monthly Report;
d-improving the categorization/prioritization/geolocation of the information.
3-Advertizing/communication:
a-adding Geoviu to more startup/entrepreneur/technological websites;
b-making 1 or 2 videos about Geoviu.
If you have any comments (good or bad) or wishes for future improvements on Geoviu, do not hesitate to comment on the Feedback option (bottom right on www.geoviu.com), or on our Facebook Fan page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Geoviu/96081356905?ref=ts) and we will answer you as soon as possible!
Thank you all for your support!
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- Tags: about, database, facebook, geoviu, statistics
And what about Facebook?
In: Technology
9 Apr 2009
As with the iPhone SDK v3.0, another future plateform we will aim at is obviously Facebook.
We will create an application, easier than the original Geoviu website and than the iPhone application of course, to quickly enable the user, in just one glance, to view the most important news around the world at that precice moment he or she has logged on Facebook and share it with his friends.
By the way, let’s have a quick reminder about Facebook:
- Well, as nearly everyone knows now, it’s the first commmunity website in terms of members with 175 million in march 2009;
- It’s the 5th most visited website worldwide;
- Due to the recent 1.7% share bought by Microsoft in 2007 at 240 million dollars, Facebook has been evaluated at about 15 billion dollars;
- Its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, born in 1984, is the youngest billionaire with an estimated fortune of 1.5 billion dollars.
As you may already know, and maybe have already used, several google mashups have already found their place on Facebook as:
- Where I’ve been (the most popular map-based application on Facebook);
- Travel Map, Cities I’ve Visited, Mapster (show your past and future travels);
- Friend Map, Map Friends, My friends map (see where your friends are/live);
- Map App (sharepoints, services around you);
- Love Map, my Wedding map (dating and relationship applications).
Unfortunately, many of these map-based applications look alike on the concept itself and the corresponding possibilities.
In conclusion, what we lack right now is experience with community based interface to allow the user to add and share information from our future Facebook application to his Facebook contacts.
Anyway, it sure will make a nice and useful addon after our iPhone application and we cannot wait to put it online! But patience folks: Geoviu beta Facebook Application is not expected online before this summer!
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- Tags: facebook, geoviu, social networking
Developing on the iPhone OS
In: Technology
7 Apr 2009
Apple just recently announced the iPhone 3.0 Operating System – although users can’t upgrade to the new OS yet, developers already have the opportunity to start working with the new SDK (Software Development Kit). Apple presented an impressive list of no less than 100 new features, and we already have our favorites: support for MMS, landscape keyboard, cut/copy/paste, notes sync etc. Being avid iPhone power-users ourselves, it goes without saying that we are very excited by this upgrade, both from a user and a developer point of view.
I guess the iPhone really appeals to developers because:
- The device itself is awesome and very user-friendly. I think this compels developers to try to create applications that are in line with the iPhone culture: clean design, ease-of-use…
- The SDK looks nice! Yes, although we haven’t started developing anything on the iPhone SDK yet, what I’ve heard, what I’ve read and the few screenshots I saw of the SDK gives me the impression that the kit is very object-oriented and that code is easy to test and debug (we’ll confirm that later).
- And the Appstore, of course, which has become a huge market place for mobile applications. The store hit 100 million downloads and 3000 apps in September 2008. Now in March 2009, Apple reports 800 million downloads and 25000 apps.
We’ve heard a lot of success stories from iPhone developers. I read an article on the developer of iShoot, who earned $800,000 in just five months after putting his game on the appstore. TechCrunch recently poster an article on the frenzy of developing apps for the iPhone: Let’s all quit our jobs and become iPhone App developers! Fair enough, but remember that 25,000 apps are out there, and that very few of them are big hits.
So if we come back to geoviu, what’s in for us? As far as maps are concerned, Apple reports that “You can now embed maps within your applications using the new Map Kit framework. Map Kit works with the Google Mobile Maps Service and features panning and zooming, custom annotations, current location and geocoding”. So they’ve improved their support for maps in the new SDK, I’m sure that’s good news for us. We’ll keep you posted on how we manage to port our concept to the iPhone!
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- Tags: apple, appstore, geoviu, iphone, itunes, mobile, mobile applications, SDK
Fairtrade, Fairfriends
In: Sustainability
31 Mar 2009
Fairtrade certification is a product certification system that allows consumers to “identify products that meet agreed environmental, labour and development standards”. The first Fairtrade labelling initiative was the Max Havelaar labelling on Mexican coffee, which started in 1988. The initiative has grown quickly over the past 20 years, and Fairtrade certified sales now amount to approximately €2.3 billion wordlwide (as of 2007). The organization carries out independant auditing of producers to evaluate their compliance with a range of criteria.
With the growing interest for Fairtrade, several independant studies have tried to measure the impact of Fairtrade on farmers and workers. Most of these studies showed that the use of this type of labelling allowed participating farmers to increase their gross household income (through higher prices) , although this also comes with an increase on cost (because labelled products are certified “organic”). To some extent, Fairtrade also protects farmers from commodity crises by encouraging a constant demand at a fixed price. Furthermore, the extra capital can generate positive ripple effects that can even reach families and farmers not partcipating in the Fairtrade network.
The question for us, is how online mapping could help Fairtrade initiatives. Given that this system aims at helping specific third world countries, we think it makes sens to try to map these certified farmers and learn more about them. In addition to this, online mapping could strengthen the community and networking around these initiatives. A website called Fairfriends already tries to do this online.
New Google Latitude: the Geo Community
In: Other maps
27 Mar 2009
As you may have already understood: we are Google fans. We use Google search engine (to browse the web), Gmail (to organize our mails, chats, tasks), Google Calendars (to organize our time and share our calendars), Google Maps (to find our itineraries) and now Google Maps API to build our website.
You may ask where I’m going with this basic statement? Well, since the beginning of February, Google launched Latitude, an easier way to stay connected with your friends and contacts. How? It’s, again, all based on a visual user-friendly interface which we all know: Google Maps, through your computer or your mobile phone. What you see are the picture-icons of the friends you decided to share info with and, through this interface, you may
-see where they are
-share your location
-interact with them (send an email, send a text message, send an IM, or phone them)
The only problem about Latitude right now is that you only find it in a limited number of countries and for a limited number of phones, including the iPhone! (oh yeah, btw, we are also Apple fans). Anyway, Latitude is such a simple tool -already tried many times on different plateforms, without real success- that only Google could make it interesting to use, as everything is interconnected with your Google login.
This could lead us in a near future to a new option on Geoviu: an all-in-one map with the news, the online-services and your own personal community.
New Google Street Views
In: Other maps
22 Mar 2009
For those who haven’t yet heard about it, Google Street View is a service that provides panoramic views (360°) taken from the streets of many big cities in the world. The service was launched in May 2007, and orginally only featured cities in the US. Now the platform has expanded to include some of these countries (amongst others): France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, Japan, Australia…
We were very excited to see that most of France’s major cities are now covered: Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Lille, Rennes, Montpellier, Nantes and Strasbourg are just a few. A good way of finding out which cities and countries are mapped, is to unzoom a bit (check out the picture on the left of this blog post), and then drag that little orange fellow on the map. All areas covered by street view will then be colored in blue.
You can find quite a few interesting ways of using this service. It can come in handy if you want to locate a specific shop / restaurant in a street you haven’t been to before. Another fun thing to do is to roam the streets of cities you’ve never been to: feel like walking in Tokyo or Sydney? Although it doesn’t seem that google is monetizing this service yet (no ads are displayed on the street view), we can imagine quite a few business perspectives for the future: imagine a platform where you could virtually walk the streets of Paris, enter a shop, and start buying things during your virtual tour of that specific boutique. Hey… is street view the future of e-commerce and online shopping? Let’s not get too excited now…
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- Tags: google, google api, Google Earth, street view
Green Technologies
In: Sustainability
19 Mar 2009
It’s now time for a brief overview on the new greentechs !
As written on the previous post, nowadays important firms are developping technologies which are more and more respectfull to the environment. This week, let’s take a look at Apple’s new orientation with the new ‘green’ MacBook Air.
Its main eco-friendly keypoints are the following:
-recyclable aluminum case,
-mercury -and arsenic- free display,
-all of the Apple-designed circuit boards -which are the vast majority of the circuit boards in the unit- are free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.
This new product apparently did not entirely convince Rick Hind, the legislative director of Greenpeace’s toxics campaign. “Apple is getting greener, but not green enough” he said.
For Steve Jobs, many other industries could be targeted by Greenpeace, but for Rick Hind, Apple is the perfect target as it is a leader and precursor in new technologies. It could therefore show the way to other competitors such as Dell and HP.
Anyway, the main idea to be remembered here is that things are changing…slowly, but surely!
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- Tags: environment, greentechs, purpose
Thematic mapping
In: Other maps
17 Mar 2009
Thematic mapping really appeals to us because it aims at displaying global data, as opposed to specific locations. An excellent application of this idea can be found at thematicmapping.org, which offers an engine that plots statistical data on a map. The primary data source of the website is UNdata, and the map used for final display is Google Earth.
Country-based statistics are clearly easier to understand when displayed on a map. Here are some of the few indicators that the engine is able to render: CO2 emissions, GDP per capita, children under five mortality rate, internet users, life expectancy, patent applications, population etc. For each of these indicators, the engine is able to generate 3D objects which vary in color and scale to offer a very visual approach of the statistics. What is also interesting is that the engine can fetch historical data, going back to the 60’s for some indicators.
The person behind this project is Bjørn Sandvik, working as a project manager at United Nations Association (UNA) of Norway. One of his KML visualisations recently won a prize from Google’s KML in research contest.
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- Tags: 3D, Google Earth, KML, statistics, thematic mapping, UNA
Geoviu Weekly Report
In: About Geoviu
12 Mar 2009
The idea started in summer 2008
The “green planet” concept being taken more and more seriously all around the globe, we were thinking of a new way to inform people on the actual world status, in real time. This is how the Geoviu concept was born.
It took almost a year to really start working on the project, principally because of programing issues. Hopefully, as well as for many other new websites, the Google API, now in OpenSource, allowed us to make this move.
It’s been only two weeks now and we are still getting impressed by all the possibilities we will be able to include in Geoviu’s final version.
So stay tuned, we are working on it full time to bring you the most developed geo-macro-environment tool of the web 2.0 !
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- Tags: about, geoviu, google api, purpose
News on a map
Geoviu is a website currently in beta. Our goal is to provide an innovative way of skimming through news articles and acquiring a general feel of what is happening around the world. We allow users to view information & news on an interactive map: articles are organized in categories and switching from global to local events is made easy with our map zoom levels. Stay tuned for future developments!
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