Nestoria Interview: The team from Mapize
Over the course of exploring mashup possibilities for this blog the name Mapize has come up several times as having created some very cool examples – yet their own site has been tantalizingly blank... Until now. So it's perfect timing to hear from the Mapize team about what else they've been creating other than mashups.
But first here's how they describe their main product:Mapize is a location-based solution for creating customizable and embeddable maps with any content and distributing them through a website, blog or social network. Today Mapize’s main features are related to social mapping. Thus, our tool enables users to map their Twitter updates and Foursquare or Gowalla check-ins and share them with other people on a blog or website (new Facebook and Youtube features coming soon). However, Mapize’s potential is not confined to social mapping. At present we are working on other functionalities to enable more widespread use of our mapping platform.
What kind of users will Mapize work for?
Mapize is designed for companies and individuals willing to geotag their interactive content and present any kind of data in a visual way. More precisely, we have 3 types of targeted users:
· Companies (geotagged directories);
· Individuals (social maps);
· Public sector (visualization of complex scientific, statistical or census data).
We’ve been involved in building location-based solutions since 2007 (with our I-Spirit web agency). Still, the rapid development of groundbreaking mapping and location-aware technologies such as GPS or Google Maps made us conceive a tool that would enable people to build their own customizable maps holding a wealth of information about everywhere in the world.
Some of the maps you've created have already been featured on the Nestoria AU blog, but what are some of your favourite recent creations?
Map of Corsican Rural Routes: The map displays Rural Tourism Routes and various growers and manufacturers (wine, cheese, sausages, sculpture, jewellery etc.) in Corsica.
Forbes Map: The map has been created based on the Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires 2010.
Book Map for French Book Association: The map includes all the libraries, bookstores and book-related events of the Ile-de-France region.
What do you think are some of the most unusual maps that you've made?
The most significant of our maps has been created in collaboration with Ajaccio City Hall (Corsica) to geotag their urban planning and landscape documents. This Google Earth-based map displays detailed data related to risk prevention planning, zoning projects, sensitive urban and archaeological areas, historical monuments etc. This project is meant to demonstrate that even the most complex data can be presented in an engaging and readable way on the map. The project has been completed, but unfortunately the map is not yet online. It will be published in the weeks to come.
Mapize has been making maps for some of the mashup competitions: what would you say you've learned from being involved with these competitions?
We are trying to keep track of the upcoming mapping contests and all kinds of mapping open government data initiatives. So, we have already participated in 2 mashup competitions:
Apps For America 2 Contest: The contest has been organized by the Sunlight Foundation to mark the publication of the data.gov online catalogue issued by the U.S. Government.
Our submission: Disasters Map mashup displaying real-time tweets about natural disasters in the USA. This mashup won one of the 10 honourable mentions.
Mashup Australia Contest: This mashup contest has been organized by the Australian Government in order to give a practical demonstration of the benefits that open access to Australian public sector information can provide.
Our submission: Darwin Bus Map displays bus routes and timetables in Darwin city, Australia.
At present, we prepare to take part in the new mashup competition in California: Apps For Californians: A web application development contest focused on enhancing government transparency and services.
Are you very involved in the geo-spatial community?
We are trying to follow location-based forums and keep track of geo-data related conferences. For instance, last winter our team attended the GeoIn Talk 2010 Conference on Geospatial and Mapping Solutions, in Paris. Over 80 participants joined this event. The speeches dealt with various data location issues such as geospatial business intelligence, the use of public transport data, new navigation approaches and mobile tourism.
What challenges do you think people working and thinking in this space are facing?
There are two major challenges that people working in the mapping industry usually face: the commercial and the technical ones. The first issue is related to the questions: Why a map? What can people do with a map? And the second one is the dependency issue. Indeed, while handling mass data we always depend on different APIs (Google Maps and Twitter APIs etc.).
What mashups or apps have you seen recently that have impressed you that you haven't made yourself, but sort of wish you'd made ?
At present, more and more nice mashups are being created to offer various geo-located data.
Here are some of our favourites:
Casper: Which tracks planes in real time
Live train Map of the London Underground: We love this one too! It does what it says on the tin.
vtravelled: A travel inspiration site.
What do you think the next big improvement in mapping technology will be and what will it mean for the community and the industry?
Our guess is that the future of mapping technology is mobile mapping and augmented reality that will bring together our physical and virtual lives. Anyway, we are glad to certify that the use of maps becomes more and more widespread due to the popularization of location-based services.
Thanks for talking to us – good luck with your launch and keep us up to date with Mapize's progress and any more interesting map apps you build.
