ProjectX Blog

Here are the visualisations of the Google crawler on the [business:ZoomIn] site on the 21/7/09.

I’ve made 3 videos, one of NZ , Wellington and Auckland.

Its interesting Google actually indexes harder the more traffic we get !

New Zealand view

Auckland view

Wellington view

We at ZoomIn joined the internet blackout last week, along with many others.

The recent news of the delay of Section 92A is good news. We have now removed our “dark maps” as the black out has ended. Thank you all for your comments as well as participation in the blackout.

We at ProjectX support the movement to blackout in protest against the Guilt Upon Accusation law Section 92A. In solidarity to the blackout movement, we have “blacked” out our maps on http://www.zoomin.co.nz and http://www.projectx.co.nz.

This blackout will be in effect until February 23rd, 2009.

If you are interested in helping out and have Google maps, here’s the code we used to black out our maps:

//Assume you have a map object
//Create a BlackOutMessageControl
function BlackoutMessageControl() {}
BlackoutMessageControl.prototype = new GControl();
BlackoutMessageControl.prototype.initialize = function(map) {
var container = document.createElement("div");

var src = “http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html”

var link = document.createElement(“a”);
link.setAttribute(‘href’, src);
link.setAttribute(‘title’, “Internet Blackout NZ”);
link.appendChild(document.createTextNode(‘Why is the map “blacked” out?’));
link.style.color = “#ffffff”;
container.appendChild(link);
this.setButtonStyle_(container);

GEvent.addDomListener(container, “click”, function() {
window.location = src;
});
GEvent.addDomListener(container, “mouseover”, function() {
link.style.textDecoration = “underline”;
});
GEvent.addDomListener(container, “mouseout”, function() {
link.style.textDecoration = “none”;
})

map.getContainer().appendChild(container);
return container;
}
BlackoutMessageControl.prototype.getDefaultPosition = function(){
return new GControlPosition(G_ANCHOR_TOP_LEFT, new GSize(75, 7));
}
// Sets the proper CSS for the given button element.
BlackoutMessageControl.prototype.setButtonStyle_ = function(button) {
button.style.textDecoration = “none”;
button.style.color = “#ffffff”;
button.style.backgroundColor = “black”;
button.style.border = “1px solid black”;
button.style.padding = “2px”;
button.style.marginBottom = “3px”;
button.style.textAlign = “center”;
button.style.width = “20em”;
button.style.cursor = “pointer”;
}

//Dark maps
var myCopyright = new GCopyrightCollection(“© “);
myCopyright.addCopyright(new GCopyright(‘Demo’,
new GLatLngBounds(new GLatLng(-90,-180), new GLatLng(90,180)),
0,’©2008 ProjectX Technology’));
var tilelayer = new GTileLayer(myCopyright);
tilelayer.getTileUrl = function() { return “/images/dark_map.gif”; };  //Modify the image location to suit
tilelayer.isPng = function() { return false;};
tilelayer.getOpacity = function() { return 0.5; }
var myTileLayer = new GTileLayerOverlay(tilelayer);
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);
map.addOverlay(myTileLayer);
map.addControl(new BlackoutMessageControl());

You can use the image(dark_map.gif) below

We shutdown the ZoomIn Map API and Geocoder API this morning. We’ve served a lot of maps and now its time for us to offer more higher value services.

Thank you to all the developers and customers that use our API’s over the past couple of years. And a big thank to all the ProjectX developers who worked on the API’s over the years – Ben, Nick, Ross, Tomek, Tim and Thong.

John

Enjoy…

The ZoomIn Mapping System is shutting down. We had a change in commercial terms with our data suppliers Terralink. We’ve made the decision to shutdown the ZoomIn Mapping System as it not commercially viable for us to continue to operate the maps given current pricing conditions for data.

All of our users have been informed 4 weeks ago. We’ve been working with our customers to find alternative suppliers.

The last day of service will be this Wednesday 3rd of September 2008.

Thanks for your business.

Looking for Snapper vendor to buy or recharge your snapper card?

We’ve tagged up every Snapper merchant on ZoomIn.

Here’s the list of snapper merchants:

Wellington City Suburbs

• Brooklyn
• Kelburn
• Roseneath
• Te Aro
• Thorndon
• Wellington City

Outer surburbs:

• Island Bay
• Karori
• Khandallah
• Kilbirnie
• Lyall Bay
• Rongotai
• Strathmore

Lower Hutt

• Wainuiomata

I was just testing the new add place functionality on ZoomIn and I added the Hippopotamus Restaurant in Wellington to the site. Google crawled the page and put it in the Google index in only 12 minutes and it became the top match! A new record for ZoomIn ! (Previously down from just over 30 minutes)

We’ve just completed the update to the map imagery on ZoomIn. It’s now live on ZoomIn maps API. (There’s no need to change any code, its an seemless update)

We’re in the process of completing the update to the addressing backend and geocoders.

This morning I added Grow Wellington to ZoomIn and within 2 hours its has already crawled the page and added it the Google Index ! Wow thats fast. We’re used to Google indexing in about 24 hours .

Update: I’ve just noticed that Google has indexed a place Occhali Optical New Market in just over 30 minutes! Go Google Go !