Thursday, November 19, 2009
Twitter API支持为tweets添加地理标签；很快将推出网页地理标签功能？
Twitter 平台/API开发者Ryan Sarver在Twitter博客中写道，当用户在阅读好友tweets，这些位置信息可以提供有价值的背景，并帮助你专注于当地对话。你现在可以看到你的邻居在播放什么音乐，或者Checkpoint Charlie上的访客对柏林墙的倒掉是如何评价的。这只是开始，希望开发者社区会找出位置信息的更多用途。
编译：pestwave
Sent to you by 参考消息 via Google Reader:
六个月前Twitter宣布将给tweets添加地理信息（地理标签），今天，他们做到了。
今天，Twitter在其官方博客上发布了这个消息，目前一些第三方客户端已经开始支持该新功能，很可能将在Twitter主页推出。
Twitter用户如果想激活该功能，需要打开设置（settings）页面，然后点击"激活地理标签（Enable Geotagging）"。显然出于隐私原因，该功能没有自动激活。
目前Birdfeed, Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro, 以及很多其他客户端已经开始支持地理标签功能。
Twitter 平台/API开发者Ryan Sarver在Twitter博客中写道，当用户在阅读好友tweets，这些位置信息可以提供有价值的背景，并帮助你专注于当地对话。你现在可以看到你的邻居在播放什么音乐，或者Checkpoint Charlie上的访客对柏林墙的倒掉是如何评价的。这只是开始，希望开发者社区会找出位置信息的更多用途。
编译：pestwave
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to 读写网唯一官方中文站 using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
OK, What the Real Phone Map Should Be
Sent to you by 参考消息 via Google Reader:
The sphere is abuzz with today's news that AT&T is suing Verizon over those apparently quite effective ads which borrow heavily from Apple's tagline - "There's an App for that..." Verizon has created a map that compares AT&T 3G coverage to Verizon's, and then uses the tagline "there's a map for that." (Above is the commercial, here's the map.)
Well, I've been ranting about a real carrier mapping application (executed as a marketing campaign, natch), for nearly three years, and while I've told just about everyone I can about it, so far it's still not done (I know, I know, we should make it ourselves, right? Well, maybe we will!).
Meanwhile, here's the idea. If any of you brilliant coder/UX/marketing geniuses want to go do it, just credit FM and I, ok?
The main value of the program? It provides a place where anyone can put a pin on a map and annotate (with four part ranting harmony if they'd like) where their calls are dropped. A service like this exists - deadcellzones.com - but it's not quite what I had in mind. It's got the guts of what I've suggested, but not the scale, interface, community feel, conversational dialog, or program backing. And by program, I mean a major carrier practicing the true principles of conversational marketing, and owning the dialog - listening, responding, and acting upon the input.
I imagine the program working something like this. A major carrier - let's say AT&T, since it's in the news today - decides to build this app. It then announces the app in a major marketing program via a traditional marketing platform (web, TV, etc.). Say you're on Boing Boing, and you see a STAMP execution that announces the new service - perhaps the ad itself is a widget that allows you to push a pin into the map based on a zip code, or whatever. One thing I know, everyone I've ever talked to has a story about how frustrated they are about dropped calls, and everyone has a list of places that are always dropping calls (for me, it's the tunnels around the GGBridge, Sand Hill Road area, and on and on...). So give them a platform to vent about it.
But wait, there's more! Venting is nice, but what'd be nicer is if your venting actually created change in the world! Imagine that! Well, if you're a major carrier, you *can* do something about it. In fact, folks are always giving carriers grief for not putting up more cel sites, but in many cases, the real reasons they can't have nothing to do with profits, and everything to do with the local city council, or geography, or other factors.
So, here's the play: As the pins pile up, those areas which have the most pins start to get "hotter" in a visual way on the map. And then comes the key part: The carrier promises, in its marketing, to address the top ten "hot spots" each quarter (or month, or whatever period of time makes sense). Note I said "address" and not "fix." Why? Because in some cases, there is no fix. For example, coverage at the North end of the Golden Gate Bridge is permanently bad, because, I am told by folks who know, it's very hard to get permission to place cel sites in the right places (the area is a national park *and* part of Sausalito, a notoriously unfriendly place when it comes to outside companies like cel carriers).
So in a case like the North end of the Golden Gate, AT&T "addresses" the problem by responding on the map itself, providing an explanation of why the company can't fix the problem, and suggesting that if consumers are upset, they might write a note to the Sausalito city councilmembers and/or the supervisors of the national park (and provide links, of course!).
The application is a mashup of sorts, blending Google Maps, crowdsourcing, geolocation, and commenting systems.
The plane is about to land, so I have to post and run. I'll revise this when I get back on terra firma. But I believe that whichever carrier actually executes on that map will, in my mind, really win the game. More on why as I update this.
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to John Battelle's Searchblog using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
Monday, November 02, 2009
Google Earth, SketchUp, and Honey did!
Sent to you by 参考消息 via Google Reader:
Honeydew (read "honey, do") turns out to be more than a melon. But she was right. Using Google Earth, I was able to get a very accurate view of the construction area and with Google SketchUp, I created a model that guided the design and construction by our contractors. The challenge was to replace the plywood with something that would last a long time and give us access to the pasture. Time, water and gravity take their toll for, sure, as you can see from the "before" picture.
An overhead view in Google Earth provided an accurate measurement of the total fence width. But I had some concerns about the actual property line because the pasture is privately owned. A very cool thing you can do with Google Earth (works great in free version or Pro) is to import electronic parcel data. Many cities and county governments provide their survey and parcel data online as a public service. Google Earth makes it easy to use. My city had my house's parcel data - which I found and loaded.
I brought the Google Earth view into SketchUp and did some initial design to get scale and sense for what was possible in the actual space. Of course, my design comps had to go through review and approval with the boss (I'll leave you to guess who that might be). Then, we worked together using SketchUp to plan the look of the fence. We wanted a nice gate to give us access to the pasture. There are some beautiful custom fences available online, but they would have cost half our budget! So instead, we "drew inspiration", a nice way of putting it, from some Google image-search results.
With the model in context, we were easily able to communicate with the contractors who bid the job. The only question they had was about the gate, since they had to have their carpenter create it. No problem, as I had constructed the gate in SketchUp to scale by simply array-copying the 2x2's and 2x5's. But, because I have the Pro version of SketchUp with LayOut, I was able to provide the carpenter with a PDF that had not only the dimensioned gate, but images of the hardware we wanted to use an an outline view of the assembly. No muss no fuss. The resulting gate was cool to see!
The contractors were great and got the job done under budget and on schedule. I may have even created some SketchUp converts. Final results are below.
Posted by James Therrien, Google Geo Team
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to SketchUpdate using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
