Archive for June, 2009
Whether for exercise, sight-seeing, or just for fun, most of us enjoy walking, running and biking our way through the city or the country side. Below you’ll find six mashups from the Programmable Web database that help you track, share and measure your excursions outside of a moving vehicle.
Share Your Workout Route
If you want a place to store or view routes that also has a community of users, run–don’t walk–to WalkJogRun (mashup profile). You can search nearby routes and view details. Each route contains mile markers and lets you edit your own copy of the route. Even better, developers will appreciate that any route can be exported to KML or GPX. This is also the only such site I’ve found that has its own iPhone app.
With a name like WikiWalki (mashup profile), you might expect an unstructured database of GPS tracks. Not so, as it actually has one of the best interfaces for entering route data. Any point can be moved or deleted, so there’s no need to get it right the first time. A cool measurement tool lets route viewers and creators to calculate the distance of specific segments.
Simplicity is key for WalkDB (mashup profile), which stores and displays basic routes. Most simply have a beginning, end and the turns in between. One feature that not every route takes advantage of are landmarks. WalkDB would be the perfect site to use to share walking tours of historic districts, for example. The only downside is that users are required to register to add a route to its database.
Get Off The Road
If you like getting out of the city and onto some trails, MTBGuru (mashup profile) is for you. Though focused first on mountain bikes, the site breaks routes into several categories, including hiking, running and skiing. It appears to only allow new routes through GPS tracks, probably because it’s hard to plot trails from satellite photos. That means MTBGuru has richer data, including how long a route took. Mixed with altitude, it makes for some detailed graphs.
The more casual trail hound might prefer Trail Chaser (mashup profile). You can add data from a web interface in addition to uploading from a GPS. There aren’t many trails yet, but those that are there have elevation data (better to know about the 2,000 foot climb ahead of time, no?) and, in some cases, photos taken along the route.
Find the Distance–Quickly
When it comes to simply measuring distances, there’s still nothing better than GMaps Pedometer (mashup profile). No login is required, so you can jump right in. It measures elevation, shows mile markers and exports as GPX. Plus, it has a feature I haven’t seen in any other track-entering interface: it optionally uses routing to plot the path between two points, easing the job of inputting a route.
Related ProgrammableWeb Resources
Amazon’s release of Kindle source code, coming alongside its complaints about Google Books’ legal agreement, brings up the interesting question of where the power lies in the ebook market.
Is it in the look-and-feel of the device? Is it in the content? Is it in the standard? (Picture by David Carnoy for CNET.)
While all these are important, I have another idea of where the power lies. I think it lies in connectivity.
As good as the Kindle is, as good as Google Books are, they are in the end books. They are mere digital representations of an analog product, complete with footnotes.
But an ebook can be more. It should be more, and before it becomes the standard reading interface it will be more.
I have a little demonstration of this future in my PC right now. It’s an updated version of my 2002 least-seller The Blankenhorn Effect. I have retitled it Moore’s Lore: How Better and Better gets Faster and Faster.
What gives this book its value? Hyperlinks.
Instead of footnotes, I’m checking references online, and changing those which disappeared since the first edition. Then I’m embedding the final links in the text as hyperlinks. The final product is an .odt file, but is easy to turn into a .html file, or a Kindle file, any other kind of file you want.
The key is I did not design this book for print. I designed it for electronic use. The ebook reader which is best for this book has an open interface to the Web, so readers can double-check anything with a click and start their own adventures with the content.
In editing the book, by the way, I found one of the biggest changes in the Web this decade has been Wikipedia, but not for the reason you think.
Wikipedia reduces the problem of disappearing links. The entries there have more stable paths than links to corporate Web sites, or even some news sites. This makes them handy as references.
Back to the reader. Amazon’s Kindle has limited Internet connectivity, designed for the downloading of books from the Kindle Store. I need more. I need to reach from the book outward toward the Web. And I need that capability to be as transparent as it is on this Web page.
The real power of an ebook lies in its connection to the Web. Hyperlinks give books that fourth dimension they have lacked for 600 years.
If we’re going to lose the great interface of a summer read, it should be for something that offers more than the feel of a good book can give you. Connectivity is the killer ebook app.
Filed under: Audio, News, Social Software
I’m a big fan of the streaming music site Grooveshark. It’s a great way to listen to practically any song and share new music with friends. EMI doesn’t have any love for Grooveshark, though: the label is suing the service. It’s not clear what the claims in the suit are, yet, but Grooveshark’s side of the story is that they were negotiating some kind of licensing deal with the major labels, and EMI sued as a negotiating tactic.
I can see why a label would want to sue Grooveshark. According to one small label that’s done business with them, Grooveshark just uses the labels’ content to pay its bills, and offers little to nothing in advertising revenue in return. On the other hand, I don’t know too many people who use Grooveshark as a replacement for buying a legitimate digital download of a song. You need to be online to listen, and you can’t put streaming tracks on your iPod, so it hardly seems like an equivalent product.
I selfishly hope Grooveshark survives this lawsuit, because I enjoy being able to preview full tracks before I buy them. I also enjoy sharing music with my friends by embedding Grooveshark widgets or using the Facebook plugin, and maybe those friends will hear something they like and go buy an album. If I were the music industry right now, I might take those sales where I could get them.
[via AllThingsD]
Grooveshark faces lawsuit from EMI originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Yahoo has announced some new updates to SearchMonkey its relatively new platform that allows web sites and web content publishers to format and custom search results on Yahoo search pages. The new updates include additional content types that can be included in search results and support for Google Base formatting for structured data feeds (our Google Base API Profile).
Previously SearchMonkey supported three types of content in custom-formatted, enhanced search results: videos, documents, and games. With the latest update to SearchMonkey, five additional content types can be included in customized search results:
- Product pages
- Local information
- Events
- News
- Discussions
Yahoo! has provided some sample markup that shows how to include some of this new content (including products) using SearchMonkey:
<div typeof="product:Product"
xmlns:product="http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/product/"
xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#">
<span property="product:listPrice">49.99</span>
<span property="product:salePrice">39.99</span>
<span property="product:currency" content="USD" />
<span property="rdfs:label">Pinball Maven : Video Games : Electronics</span>
<span rel="rdfs:seeAlso media:image">
<img src="http://www.sytore.com/product.jpg"/>
</span>
<div rel="review:hasReview">
<span typeof="review:Review">
<span property="review:rating">4</span>
<span property="review:totalRatings">17</span>
</span>
</div>
</div>
After a page is recrawled by Yahoo’s spiders, the results would display as enhanced results.
In addition to the update for enhanced results, Yahoo search now supports Google base feed items. According to the Yahoo Search Blog:
Since its launch in late 2005, there has been a growing community of tools and partners for Google Base, Google’s online repository for user-contributed structured data. Today, Yahoo Search will accept five popular Google Base feed item types: Event, Product, Review, Job, and Personals.
Why is this important? First, site owners who have Google Base feeds containing Event and Product information can now automatically have their enhanced results displayed in Yahoo! Search by submitting their existing feed through Yahoo! Site Explorer.
Additionally, Site Explorer can convert existing feeds into DataRSS XML format. Developers should check out the SearchMonkey guide, which includes additional information for getting started with the platform.
Related ProgrammableWeb Resources
Firefox 3.5 RC1 is now targeted for release on June 19, said one Mozilla spokeswoman.
Over the next few days, Mozilla will begin releasing Build 2 of the release candidate to about 800,000 beta testers. But the official release candidate 1 won’t be available until later in the week.
Firefox’s lead developer said “Firefox 3.5 RC1 was not yet ready for the public to download, install and run [now],” one Mozilla spokeswoman said in an email statement on Wednesday. “Mozilla targets June 19th for the public availability of Firefox 3.5 RC1.”
During Tuesday’s weekly meeting, it appeared unclear whether RC1 would be made widely available or if a soon-to-follow RC2 would be made available for final public testing. It is now clear that the public will get their hands on RC1 after all.
Google’s contact manager for Gmail has left a lot to be desired for a long time. For once thing, up until recently it didn’t have fields for birth dates, web sites, or other information that might be stored in your other address books. But today Google added support for birthday and website information.
Now when you import contacts in CSV format from Outlook, Outlook Express, Hotmail, or Yahoo, or vCard format from OS X address book, the additional information should be copied over correctly. Google added these features to its standalone contact manager a while back, but the integration with Gmail is a welcome addition.
Of course, if you’ve already imported a few thousand contacts from your Outlook Address book, you’re out of luck unless you want to delete all of your Gmail contacts and start again from scratch.
Gmail beefs up its contact manager originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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While I don’t pretend to be an expert in the storage market, it’s interesting to see how things have heated up the last few years. Companies like EMC and NetApp have built huge businesses with tremendous profit margins. After all, there’s more and more business critical data to store, not to mention gigabytes, terabytes, and petabytes of unstructured data, images, videos, and so on.
This post is part of our Nokia Mobile Mashup Channel, a sponsored ProgrammableWeb section focused on building mobile apps and mashups for Nokia devices.
Nokia, with new devices like the Nokia N97 making gadget blog headlines and the opening of the Ovi Store last month, is in the midst of a big push to expand and open its platform to web developers of all stripes. Then there is the $250,000 in prizes in the Calling All Innovators Contest, one of the largest prizes for developers that we’ve seen, as well as the hefty $30K in prizes in their Apps on Maps Contest. And finally, a new Ovi Maps API offers rich 2D and 3D views, optimized for mobile as well as website applications.
Contests: Developers have until the end of this month to enter their apps for the two contests from Nokia: Calling All Innovators and Apps on Maps. As a follow-up to last fall’s Innovators contest, Nokia has raised the total prize money to $250,000 and entrants can create winning apps in 3 categories:
- Internet Innovation: Build apps on Nokia devices using standard Internet technologies like XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and AJAX.
- Emerging Markets: Create apps that help meet the needs and improve the lives of millions living in rural areas worldwide.
- Flash: Use Flash Lite on Nokia devices to build rich mobile apps.
Deadline for entries is June 30th and can be submitted here. As an extra incentive, winners also get premium placement at the new Ovi Store. Premium placement is known to be a key driver for gaining traction on sales.
Also coming-up is the deadline for the Apps on Maps contest where developers can build location-aware apps by taking the new Ovi Maps API and open standards to win cash prizes up to $30,000, get premium Ovi Store placement and be showcased at a major Nokia event. Submit your idea this month to enter.
Ovi Store: Ovi means ‘door’ in Finnish, and the door is wide open for developers to capitalize on mobile growth. The store applications are organized into these categories: Business, City Guides/Maps, Entertainment, Music, News and Info, Photo and Video, Reference, Social Networks, Sports, and Utilities. Along with a separate category for games of all types.
For inspiration, see developers already in the store who are building mobile apps based on third party services:
- Facebook for Nokia: Facebook’s mobile app for Nokia devices that gives you mobile access to essential Facebook functions: update your status, see what your friends are up to, upload photos, and check messages.
- Twittix – Twitter for Nokia: Take Twitter in your pocket with Twittix: send, receive, update and share Tweets on the go.
- IM+ for Skype: Chat with your Skype contacts for free, call to any landline or mobile number at low rates. The app works worldwide in any 3G /GSM/CDMA does not require Wi-Fi.
Ovi Maps Player API: And as one more part of Nokia’s strategy to become an open platform, earlier this month they also announced the new Ovi Maps Player API. It’s a new JavaScript mapping API that’s built on the technology from NAVTEQ, whom they acquired in late 2007. The API is currently in limited beta. We’ve created a new Ovi Maps Player API profile that will have more technical details as they are released.
For more on building mobile mashups on Nokia’s platform check-out our special PW Nokia mobile mashup section that includes videos, tutorials, example mashups and code.
Click2try announced it is hosting a version of Ubuntu, and applications, which people can try free and rent if they like it.
It’s the most innovative thing I’ve seen from Ubuntu in months. And, yes, they didn’t even do it.
It is time for open source advocates to take off the rose-colored glasses and ask if Ubuntu — more appropriately its Canonical business arm headed by Mark Shuttleworth — is ever going to be a factor below the server level.
I have always assumed that Ubuntu was the desktop play, but it has been blown out in netbooks and seems to have no presence in phones.
Part of the problem is the channel because, as I have written here before, there is a price lower than free. Acquiring a retail presence costs money, and since a free operating system has none it’s not happening.
This is doubly true in mobile, where subsidies have to go up the stack to carriers and even manufacturers. The market is a bazaar where everyone wants you to pay before you can play.
This limits Ubuntu’s options. You can only get so far on downloads and the charisma of your chairman. Can Ubuntu get farther, or is it doomed to be a minor player?
I know Ubuntu has many friends here. I like to think I’m one of them. Ubuntu has opened many markets by offering localized versions of its software in many languages.
It can rely on others’ efforts, like the Linux Foundation, to draw in applications by supporting the Linux Standard Base. It is also supporting Moblin, hosted by the Foundation, as its mobile phone solution.
But all this is low-hanging fruit. If Ubuntu can’t gain any retail foothold, if it can’t win share in netbooks or on phones, how far can it really go? And how should it get there?
Filed under: Finance, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial
Last week Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing Microsoft Money, the company’s personal finance application. Download Squad readers came up with a number of great suggestions for anyone looking for a replacement. But the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Quicken. And now Intuit, the company behind Quicken are reaching out to Microsoft Money customers by offering tools to import Money data to Quicken. The company is also offering discounts of up to $50 on Quicken software.
Those coupons start at $20 off the price of Quicken Deluxe, bringing the price down to $39.99. You can also get $30 off the price of Quicken Premier or Home& Business, or $50 off the price of Rental Property Manager. Or if your finances aren’t that complicated, you could just try Quicken Online for free.
The coupons are good through July 31st. Microsoft will stop selling Money at the end of June, although support will be available through January, 2011.
Quicken offers coupons to attract abandoned Microsoft Money users originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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