ProjectX Technology

We’ve completely overhauled the add place process on ZoomIn. Now, if you want to add a place to ZoomIn is as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1. Drag the Add place marker onto the map

Position the marker with X marks the spot. You can adjust the position by dragging the marker to the correct location.

2. Refine your address using the drop down box

We automagically figure out the closest address based on your location. All you have to do is refine the address in the dropdown menu to match your desired location.

3. Add your place content

You can add the name of the place / business, a description and tags .

And you’re done!

We’ve just completed an update to the underlying data on ZoomIn. We’ve just switched to a new suburb set on ZoomIn base onto the “New Zealand Fire Service” (NZFS) suburb set.

Why?

Its about accuracy, we want to provide the most up to date map service around. The NZFS suburb set is being used by all of New Zealand emergency services ie. Police, Ambulance and Fire Service. This update will better represent the way that you think and use addresses in your neighbourhood. The update adds another 1500 suburbs to ZoomIn. We’ve now got a total of 2986 suburbs in our address database.

We’ve completely rebuilt our address system from scratch, which gives us a chance to get all of the address cobwebs out of the system.

Changes to ZoomIn urls

The new address data means changes to the ZoomIn URL’s. Don’t worry, all of the old URL’s will still work, they’ll automatically redirect to the new address url.

Here are some examples:

OLD: http://www.zoomin.co.nz/map/nz/wellington/wellington+wharf/waterloo+quay/28/
NEW: http://www.zoomin.co.nz/map/nz/wellington/pipitea/waterloo+quay/28/

OLD: http://www.zoomin.co.nz/map/nz/auckland/auckland/queen+street/
NEW: http://www.zoomin.co.nz/map/nz/auckland/auckland+central/queen+street/

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.

ZoomIn will be down from 6pm today (7th July 2008). We will be performing several data maintenance tasks, including updated addresses and suburbs. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The site should be back up within the night, after the tasks have been completed.

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 !