As of today, we have over 9,000 locations documented on Stickymap! Thanks to all of our uses who have contributed to this 9,000. When we reach 10K, I’ll try to break the numbers down by region. We’re considering having a running counter on the site when we do some redesigns – and I’m sure user opinion on this issue will affect our decision.
Max
For the past week, we’ve been developing our local search capabilities and the results have been fantastic. We’ve decided to take a very challenging but innovative approach; to combine our Stickymap content with Yahoo! Local content and the Google Geocoding tool. When we introduce our new interface in a few weeks, our algorithm will search through the Stickymap database, the Yahoo! Local database, and the Google Geocoder database to return the most relevant results. While writing algorithms that return merged results from multiple databases is nothing new, we believe that we’re the first to implement this method for user generated content in local search. We are very excited to hear your thoughts and can not wait to make this interface available to our users.
Dan
We just started working with a graphics designer to create our new home page. So far, we’ve had some useful discussion and results. Over the next few weeks, we plan to continue to refine the look and feel of the homepage so that it is easier for our users to interact with the software. We have always found it challenging to present our technology in an “easy to use” interface; it’s complicated and requires the user to make educated decisions. We do not want to create a homepage that is overwhelming. So, we’ve been testing out a few concepts with test subjects and we’re training a quality assurance intern to help us perfect our new homepage.
Please let us know if you would like to help us complete our project. We would especially be interested in graphic designers who would be interested in volunteering a few hours to offer advice and direction.
Dan
I’m glad to see this project move forward and this blog is going to be a great reference and forum for the work that we’ve been doing.
One of the great things about Stickymap is that we allow users to share their unique geographic information. Given this goal, we need to upgrade our system for registering and activating users. Activation is the process whereby users prove that they own a given email address by clicking a link sent to their inbox. Today we found a bug in the activation email where the URL was given out incorrectly. I fixed the problem so that future emails will be correct, and even the incorrect activation URLs will now work as expected. Thanks to all the users who took the time to send us an email and alert us to the problem!
We’re currently working on a system of nicer HTML emails. Some users have reported that of our registration emails have ended up in their spam folder. It seems that the evil spammers have made it difficult even to send requested emails. We’re looking at ways to reduce the likelihood of our emails being sent to the spam folder. We’d appreciate anyone’s ideas and expertise.
In the future when this system is improved, look for more advanced automated email options: you’ll be able to watch points of interest for changes, or perhaps receive messages through your profile. Please send us any other ideas you may have.
Max
The time has finally come for us to upgrade to a more powerful server. We realized that the host we were using would not be able to handle our requirements, considering our current growth rates. However, the last few weeks have been quite painful, as we’ve been transferring our databases to the new server. Unfortunately, the transition has created a few problems, but we’ve been able to solve most of them. Currently, we’re trying to figure out how to send our emails past the spam filters. If you are an expert in email servers, we’d really appreciate your help!
Dan
Max and I are excited to launch the Stickymap blog. We’ll be using the blog as a forum; we want our users to be able to communicate in a friendly setting and keep on top of our progress. Please feel free to leave comments and offer suggestions. The next few months are going to be quite exciting, as we’ll be launching our Beta version by October 1, 2007.
It is hard to believe that the Stickymap project has been live for over a year. And in that time, the website has been visited by thousands of individuals who have shared special locations in their neighborhoods for all to see. We never imagined that the website would become so popular, and we can not wait to release new functionality and a new interface by October 1. In the mean time, we’ll be launching different features piece meal; as we receive feedback, we’ll refine the components.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll keep you posted on the progress of our technical development as well as what is causing us trouble. If you have questions or want to help us complete a task, do not hesitate to reach out.
Thanks so much for all of the support,
Dan
