Posts FromJanuary, 2009

13
Jan 09

Outside.in’s Radar Now Available as iPhone App

Posted by john in Announcements / Development & Features / News — View Comments

Since the very beginning of time, people have walked around thinking to themselves, “I wonder what’s going on around me right now?”

It is a basic human instinct to want up-to-the-minute information on your immediate surroundings. And this desire has always gone unmet by commonly available media and communications systems.

But no more.

Today, Outside.in launches its new Radar app for the iPhone. The app, now available in the iTunes Store, tells you what’s going on right around you, delivering the most recent headlines from newspapers, blogs, twitter, yelp and more about places nearby.

Load Radar for iPhone up, and it immediately gives you the ten most recent headlines within 1000 feet of your current location. Click through those headlines and you instantly get a snippet of those stories to see what they’re about. Click through again, and you get the full story, from the original site.

Or bump Radar out a notch, and you can read all of the most recent stories from the web about the neighborhood you happen to be in at the moment.

Bump it out one more level, and Radar shows you the most recent stories from the entire city around you.

Radar on the iPhone presents a whole new way of engaging news and information online. The experience becomes not so much one of browsing the web, as much as browsing the world directly around you. Wherever you go, you gain access to the information on the web about that specific area. And that information is likely to be relevant, or at least interesting, by virtue of the fact that it is about stuff that is happening literally right next to you.

The iPhone Radar app is another step in Outside.in’s quest to bring location to the web, and the web to location. We think it’s a pretty exciting one. Give it a try and tell us what you think.

12
Jan 09

Ruby Gem for Radar

Posted by Cory in Development & Features / Tips & Tricks — View Comments

One of the great things about creating an API is that it gives developers a chance to use your service to do the things they want to do with it. When we launched our API we did so hoping that it would give folks the opportunity to build the things that we haven’t had a chance to do on our own or haven’t thought of yet, and we’ve already seen some interesting stuff come out of it like near.ly.

As of last week, it’s gotten even easier to consume our API if you’re using Ruby, thanks to a neat wrapper gem called Radarb that the folks at Viget Labs have created. You can check it out on github.

9
Jan 09

Need a Date Tonight? How About A StoryMap?

Posted by Jared in Uncategorized — View Comments

Here are a couple of nice StoryMaps to take you into the weekend.

Silicon Florist catalogs the technology start-up scene in Portland, OR aka The Silicon Forest…in which The Florist is “trying to help 1,000 flowers bloom.” You might be surprised to see how much is going on in the Portland tech scene.  I’ve always imagined Portland to be a 21st century paradise; Silicon Florist fuels that dream a little more every day.

Read McDuff’s Food and Wine Trail before you order wine at dinner tonight.  This way you’ll know what you’re doing before you stare at the wine list confusedly for 20 mins.  While you’re educating yourself on the wines of the Northeast (for instance with a nice post about Long Island wines), you can admire McDuff’s StoryMap.  Don’t spend too long ogling it, though; you don’t want to incite any jealousy from the StoryMap on your site.

8
Jan 09

Praise From A User

Posted by Jared in General — View Comments

It turns out that when I wrote yesterday, “The New Gay Travel Guide is really getting into the idea that GeoTagging matters,” it was an understatement.  Here’s an excellent post about us on the authors’ other site, Business Blogging Tips.

Here’s a little snippet that shows they know what they’re talking about:

So whether you just want to be “neighbor” and sign up to find cool places and news near you – or if you are a publisher/blogger, contribute and get a free “story map” and GeoToolkit – it can help publishers of local content get wider distribution and increased traffic.

Read more…

8
Jan 09

StoryMap Alerts from St. Louis and Boston

Posted by Jared in General — View Comments

My social life in St. Louis and Boston just got better, and so did yours.

Hot Spot Vibe keeps its ear to the ground about parties and concerts with St. Louis celebrities.  This is where you find out where Nelly will be on Saturday night or where to go for your buddy’s bachelor party.  And, of course, their StoryMap will help you find out if any of those places are close enough to your house to make the effort.  (Full disclosure: I’m definitely not cool enough for these parties, but maybe you are!)

EnoughCowbell was the other entertainment hit of the day. They do very thorough work tracking all the live music worth seeing in the Boston area.  Especially useful are the nightly listings he puts out so when you want to find something last minute, you can.  If you have a favorite venue and you want to know who’s playing there and what EnoughCowbell says about it, then (everybody now…) use the StoryMap!

This post was brought to you by GeoToolkit.

7
Jan 09

More StoryMaps Come Out!

Posted by Jared in General — View Comments

There was a little bit of StoryMap fever yesterday as we saw a bunch of new maps go up around the GeoWeb.  Anyhow, let’s get to the details.

The New Gay Travel Guide is really getting into the idea that GeoTagging matters.  They put a StoryMap on their primary site and in four of their markets: Chicago, New York, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm Springs.  The NGTG is a great resource for GLBT-friendly events and travel destinations.

In other news, Day Tripper Dispatches put a StoryMap on their blog.  Their site is a great companion to their Compleat Day Tripper Books, which suggest excellent day trips in the Boston area and Cape Cod–fun for the whole family!

Lastly, and definitely not leastly, Miami’s Channel 2 UVU put a fetching StoryMap in their Sidebar.  UVU is a local news site that claims to “know what your neighbors are up to.”  (Does that implicitly mean they know what you’re up to?) Right now our map sits next to “Robert The Haunted Doll.” It gave me The Fear.

6
Jan 09

The Huffington Post Chicago, For The Record

Posted by Jared in Uncategorized — View Comments

You may have seen some Tweets passing by your radar (not to be confused with your Radar*) about a StoryMap on The Huffington Post’s Chicago site. Well, you’re hearing it here second, it’s true.  The HuffPost Chicago has graced their front page with a StoryMap.  You can even look at a jumbotron version.

The HuffPo is jumping right into the fray of local news and aggregation, and we’re thrilled to be helping. Our maps enable the HuffPo to organize their content geographically and their readers to find stories near them that they care about. We’re opening up the GeoWeb for everyone to reap the benefits.

5
Jan 09

StoryMap-aganza!

Posted by Jared in Uncategorized — View Comments

This holiday season several blogs gave their readers the gift of the StoryMap.

A highlight was the nice big one Jason Kottke put on kottke.org.

Not to be outdone, however, is a trio of excellent local sites:

Notice any StoryMaps in the blogosphere that you like?  Leave a comment.

5
Jan 09

New Year’s Ruby Happy Hour

Posted by Cory in Events — View Comments

outside.in + Pivotal Lab‘s monthly happy hour is this Wednesday, January 7th. We’ll be serving up the usual beer and pizza and providing space to hang out and meet other NYC rubyists.

When: 7-9pm Wednesday January 7th, 2009 (1st Wednesday of the month)

Where: outside.in’s offices: 20 Jay Street Suite 1019 (10th Floor), Brooklyn, NY (map)

If you’re planning on coming, please RSVP in the comments so we have enough provisions.

See you there!

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