Download - Tyler bell
Location Business Summit
GeoLocal APIs
unencumbering theGeoLocal ecosystemTyler Bell
14 September 2010
Twitter: @twbell
Local Ecosystem
Interconnected resources that facilitate an
informed, real-world consumer
experience…
The Local Ecosystem
- 2 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell http://www.flickr.com/photos/leafy/3826214063/
and the value of a product is proportional
to how many other products it
communicates with
GeoLocal
Built Environment and AR Daily Deals
Maps Utilities, Routing, Geocoding
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Places and Listings
Maps Utilities, Routing, Geocoding
Social Location
Obligatory NASCAR Logo Montage
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Three Ways In
CrawledContent
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Application
APIContribution
To Local
Ecosystem
Monday: TechCrunch/SimpleGeo
Q: What is it you do?
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http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/13/what-is-it-you-do-the-need-for-simplicity/
A: See our API docs….
This is the only appropriate answer to a developer
PiñataMarketing (paper maché)
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API (candy)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/esquipulas/561125635/
APIs are the soul of a product
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They reveal its naked capabilities and the intentions of its creators
Source and Crawled Content
robots.txt is hugely insightful
as is ‘viewing source’
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…both make for lousy presentations
Example: Google Places PM
“We are going to focus initially on check-in applications [and] have now begun
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in applications [and] have now begun reaching out to developers”
Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell
http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2010/07/checking-in-with-places-api.html
- Google Maps API Product Manager
Example: Google Places API TOS
• Applications may not store any Place data permanently except References and IDs.
• Place data cannot be redistributed via your own API
• May only be used in conjunction with displaying
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results on a Google map
• Using Place data without displaying a map for which Place data was requested is prohibited.
• May only be used in response to end user actions.
• So there.
Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell
Paraphrased from http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/places/
No Doors
Product does not facilitate new
approaches, applications, or
business models
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Multiple Product Options
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Product creates multiple new
opportunities for exploration, integration
and experimentation
A Look into some Local APIs
Short commentary
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on what APIs reveal(now, not planned roadmap or intentions)
• Ease of check-in at expense of data accuracy (this is OK, and worked well)
• Massive dupe prob – solvable. Larger
- 16 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell
– solvable. Larger issue of traction has been addressed
• Search provides no name-to-venue disambiguation
• Robots.txt: restricts websearchhttp://aboutfoursquare.com/superusers-mislocated-venues/
• Only user names exposed to crawlers
• Massive API presence
- 17 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell
• Massive API presence (of course)
• Does not employ own metadata standards –see API note above
• Robots.txt: heavy restrictions – again, pushing for API use v. crawled content
• No ‘place pages’, therefore no crawled metadata
• Tweets from 4sq check-ins are tied to a Twitter place – done
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Twitter place – done via BD rather than API
• Three geo endpoints in API: nearby, details, and rev. geocode
• Place serves now as tweet-centric hub –more certainly coming
• Hcard encoding on listings (nice)
• FB Like Button
- 19 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell
• No venue resolution on search API
• Literally impersonal: no people parameters in API
• robots.txt contains ‘three laws of robotics’ (geek cred)
foursquare:venue=516723
Krohn Conservatory
• Machine tags allow
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• Machine tags allow cross-reference into any namespace (incl. OSM)
• Huge API
• But also indexed and discoverable across searchhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisirmo/4560462516/
Datawire Connect and Plumb
- 22 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerplish/250836258/
Razorwire Partition and Control
- 23 -Tyler Bell | [email protected] | @twbell http://www.flickr.com/photos/mightyboybrian/113445631/