Sneak Preview
Posted by Chris Wed, 19 Jul 2006 09:07:00 GMT
...something we’re working on… :)
It's your data; now you can take it with you
Posted by Chris Fri, 14 Jul 2006 07:35:00 GMT
'...make sure people can get their data out if they decide to leave. We make sure customers can easily export all messages
and comments in xml format at any time. It’s their data and they should be able to do with it what they want.'
—Getting Real (2006), 37 Signals
Well said. To that end, we now allow all map pins to be downloaded in XML format. Simply append ”/xml” to your link, or click ‘export’ at the bottom right of the map on your pin screen. Hope you find this useful.
Google Advert Policy Updated: Pro-rata refund offered
Posted by Chris Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:34:00 GMT
We’ve taken another look at our Google Maps “compulsory ads” policy for Pin in the Map.
For those of you not in the know, Google reserves the right to add some form of compulsory advertising to their map area, although they haven’t yet.
If this did become the case, we would consider purchasing a “no-adverts” Google maps license, ensuring that premium pins remain ad-free. However this is currently only available in the US or Canada, so we cannot guarantee that we can remove compulsory adverts from Premium Pins.
With this uncertainty, we thought we’d offer a bit of peace of mind: if you purchase a Premium Pin, compulsory ads did start appearing and you wish to cancel for this reason, give us a shout and we will refund your fee on a pro-rata basis, based on the date of your cancellation. We figured that that’s only fair.
Let us know if you have any comments.
We now accept Pounds Sterling for UK Customers
Posted by Chris Sat, 08 Jul 2006 15:57:00 GMT
A number of UK-based people have requested a pounds sterling option, so that they can guard against exchange rate fluctuations altering the amount of their monthly subscription.
Being as we’re in the UK this makes a lot of sense, so we’ve implemented this for you.
Current prices are £2.50 per month, or £24 pounds a year. These prices include VAT (UK sales tax), so if you are a UK VAT-registered business you can reclaim this amount and only pay just over £2 a month. Bargain.
Problems with auto-name-checker fixed
Posted by Chris Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:14:00 GMT
Our “checkname” function went on strike this morning, refusing to return decent error messages until given better working conditions.
We’ve beaten it into submission now. If you’ve tried to register a premium pin in the last day or so and not had much luck choosing your pin name, have another go now. Let us know of any other problems. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Pin in the Map 2.0
Posted by Chris Mon, 03 Jul 2006 12:44:00 GMT
We’re calling it 2.0 because such a lot has gone in….
First up, premium pins are here. You can use PayPal to purchase either a monthly or an annual subscription to turn an individual pin “premium”.
This gives you a number of nice extras… It lets you embed your pin into your website without all the stuff around the page, you get a proper link with real words, linking to a neat view without any adverts on the main page. We’re sure you’ll like it.
Also, we’ve trotted out our designer, Dan, who’s given up a lovely new redesign with a neat logo and new colour scheme to brighten things up. Hope you like it.
Oh, and there’s now a handy little ‘digg this!’ link on the right hand side of the menu, just in case you haven’t yet :)
Enjoy. Any questions, let us know.
A month in
Posted by Chris Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:40:00 GMT
Pin in the Map is a month old today!
So how has the service fared? What’s been going on recently?
31 days in and we’re averaging 4,000 pages a day, with over 11,000 pins created so far. Our high point of 43,000 pages was on the 6th June, when The Register ran a story on us and we made the Del.icio.us front page and their popular list.
We’ve also got onto digg (if you feel like digging us, click here) plus a number of other sites. For some reason, the coverage has been mostly in Japan. I’m not quite sure why.
What’s new? Well, we’ve been working hard on the Paypal integration for the Pin in the Map Premium service. It’s almost done; still to do is the automated selection of a premium name for your pin, and a few bits of tidying. You know what’ll happen, Google will release GBuy the moment we’re done, with a lower commission, and we’ll be sorely tempted to move to them (and redo the integration!) We want to get this running sooner rather than later so watch this space.
We’re also trying to fit in a revamp of the look. We’ll keep the lines, but we may well improve the logo and the color schema. Quite frankly, the current design isn’t really a design at all, and any improvement will only be a good thing.
Hope that fills you in sufficiently. Any questions, holler.
Fixed the pin movement problem
Posted by Chris Wed, 21 Jun 2006 13:15:00 GMT
A number of you have written in to say that your pins were moving a few yards in an annoying fashion after you put them down.
We thought this was annoying too; so we looked into the problem. It looks like the “float” column type in MySQL only saves about 6 or so significant digits; so any pins at the ‘edges of the earth’ (far extremes from 0,0) were only accurate to about 20 metres. Not good enough.
We’ve altered the database so that we store all the precision data now. Thanks to the new fancy editing capability, you are able to edit your pin position and place it exactly where you want it; it should stay put this time!
Any further problems in this area; let us know.
You can now edit your Pins
Posted by Chris Wed, 21 Jun 2006 12:32:00 GMT
We’ve finished the pin editing capability. From now on, anyone who has entered a password for their pin will be able to edit the pin description, place the pin somewhere else, and change the map type.
It’s still officially in beta, so if anyone notices anything weird, then let us know.
If you have any other suggestions, then send ‘em in! We feel like we’re on a roll…
Next, we’re probably going to look at getting the whole premium thing up and running. Stay tuned.
Pin editing - coming soon...
Posted by Chris Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:43:00 GMT
We’ve almost finished the pin editing capability.
This will give everyone a link on the bottom right of their pin, allowing them to do some nifty in place editing as long as they entered a pin password. You’ll also be able to change the place placement and tweak the zoom and map type.
A nice side effect of this is that you can see the “source text” for any pin (although you won’t be able to change it unless you know the password). So if you see a pin you really like the look of, and want to know how it was created, you can click ‘edit pin’ and find out…
This new feature will be released sometime in the next few days. You might want to subscribe to our blog feed so that you don’t miss it when it comes out…
-Chris
