Nestoria Blog

This month we have the chance to interview Tom Steinberg, Director of mySociety, the folks behind such innovative sites as TheyWorkForYou (whose governmental data we display on Nestoria) and FixMyStreet. In the same way that we aim to make Nestoria as simple as possible to do one thing: search for property, mySociety aims to build very simple websites that help people engage with their community. Most relevantly to property mySociety recently produced some very innovative and much discussed travel-time maps.

Tom, thanks for speaking with us.

1. Please explain the goals of mySociety.
mySociety is all about building deceptively simple websites which give citizens simple, tangible benefits to the parts of their lives that are concerned with their democracy and their communities. We aim to provide benefits that are as simple and tangible as when Amazon sends you a book, but just in the more nebulous (but highly important) arena of politics, democracy, social capital and so on. We also aim to teach bits of the public and the voluntary sector how they could be spending their money a lot better to help citizens.

2. What the technical challenges you face?
Wow, big question. There are lots but some of the more interesting are:

1. Attracting audiences with zero marketing budget to things that aren’t as inately ‘fun’ as YouTube videos of cats falling off tables. We do this by working hard on legit SEO, and by making our sites the sorts of things that lots of other people running other sites can make use of, by, for example linking to speeches made in Parliament on TheyWorkForYou, or by encouraging people to write to politicans via WriteToThem.com
2. One challenge I especially like to work on is generating public good from private desire. One good example of this is FixMyStreet, where people who report problems end up generating a public database about local problems. On the brand new WhatDoTheyKnow.com people use the site because it’s an easy way of getting information they need, personally, but it generates a public database that Google can crawl of what people are looking for, and what the Government is giving them back.
3. Sometimes we have sheer scale problems. At its peak load ever the No10 petitions site saw 141 people confirm their signatures successfully in one second - more than 10 times the rate that the BBC expects to be able to sign up new people, and all running on just three machines. Most of that is thanks to the lasting genius of our late and much missed colleague Chris Lightfoot, and the loving care of our awesome dev team.

3. How might some of these lessons learned in building simple apps for the mass public be applicable to to the vertical search space?
Perhaps the top lesson we can give anyone who runs a search service on a database that is constantly changing and updating is this - build alerting systems and advertise them aggressively (can you see the advert on this page? - I hope so!). People talk a lot about RSS but if you run such a database and don’t let people sign up for email alerts when a word or phrase or other unique string comes up, then you’re missing a huge number of repeat visitors, as well as failing to serve your audience.

 

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?
Well, as it happens I’ve been using your site a lot in the last week attempting to find somewhere to live (has anyone got a nice 1 bedroom in the East End to let?). It seems to me that you’ve got various challenges:

1. Persuading your users that they’re on a site that has most of what’s out there to be had. I’d like to see some some of percentage, even if it was a guesstimate of how much of the total property available in the area I’m looking at that’s currently on the market is in front of me. Google has done a great job at making people think that if it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist, so expectations of completeness are very high.
2. Obtaining good, reasonably priced geodata to power your service. I believe you’ve only got the first part of postcodes, which caused me a bit of a headache first time I used the site. I hope that Nestoria will be amongst the voices calling for improvements in licensing from the Ordnance Survey - it feels as if change is a afoot.
3. Partnering with companies so that the user experience of what people find is as good as the finding process. Nestoria is almost embarrassingly more usable than most of the sites that supply its data at the moment, which causes some user frustration.

Thanks Tom. Lots of good feedback here. Creating simplicity is deceptively difficult and requires continual fine-tuning. We’ll keep doing our best to encourage open geodata and to partner with sites that value user experience. Likewise, we’ll be opening up more of our data in the very near future. Keep up the great work at mySociety and please extend our thanks to the entire team. Meanwhile we invite all our readers to check out mySociety’s latest community site: GroupsNearYou

 

past Nestoria interviews: Lelia Ferro, Lloyd Shepherd, Adam Samuel.

This month we speak to Lelia Ferro, producer at Channel4.com’s property website 4Homes, home to many of the UK’s leading property shows like Grand Designs, Property Ladder, and Location, Location that attract millions of viewers each week. The site is updated several times a day with tips and guides on everything from house buying to architecture. Channel4 recently partners with Nestoria, to use Nestoria property search technology.

Lelia brings long experience in the online property industry to her role, having previously worked at property portal FindaProperty.

Lelia, thanks for speaking with us.

1. Discuss some of the challenges of managing the online presence for popular offline brands like Channel4’s portfolio of property programming. How do you use the medium of online to enhance the television experience?
It is a challenge, mainly due to the high volume of programmes, but 4Homes has a loyal user base and is a well established site. I often put it like this. The 4Homes programmes inspire people and the website empowers them to do it for themselves. So the website is an extension of the programme experience. I try to maximise the medium by getting users involved and devising relevant functionality that complements the shows.

2. Do you see the UK public’s appetite for property diminishing anytime soon? Or is the seemingly insatiable hunger for all things property related a permanent part of the national psyche?
I think a credit crunch might slow the property market very slightly and trends in purchasing shift over time, but the passion for property is here to stay. It remains one of the main ways of securing your future financially, plus people are becoming more and more interested in architecture and their environment thanks to programmes like Grand Designs.

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online property sector in the last 18 months? What do you see coming in the future?
I think it has been a very exciting time. When I was still at Find a Property, there were only a few major players in the online property world which meant they could command the industry in terms of pricing and loyalty. Now that’s all changed. There is a lot more choice and second generation property searches like Nestoria give users what they want which is the ability to quickly find what they are looking for all in one place. It is a better user experience overall and less work and money for estate agents who just want their properties viewed by as many users as possible. In the future I think we will see a lot more collaboration between site owners, not just in the property sector but all over the web.

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?
Sites like Nestoria have the benefit of being young and fresh. The company takes an open source approach to business and this works in their favour. Many of their older competitors are owned by large corporations and they benefit from effective promotion. By taking advantage of key partnerships, as they have with Channel 4, Nestoria will be able to significantly close the gap on their competitors.

Thanks Lelia. It’s a great honour for a small start up like Nestoria to work with a leading UK media brand like Channel4, and we look forward to a successful partnership, as one of many mutually beneficial tie ups with traditional media brands.

past Nestoria interviews: Lloyd Shepherd, Adam Samuel, and Gabor Cselle.

This year we kick off our Nestoria interview series with Lloyd Shepherd, one of the co-founders of new UK blog network MessyMedia. Lloyd has a long history of being at the intersection journalism and technology innovation having worked in senior roles at Yahoo! Europe and the Guardian Unlimited before starting MessyMedia. Messy was launched in September 2007 and is developing a portfolio of blogs marked by their ability to both entertain and inform. So far they’ve launched Westmonster (covering politics) and Glitterditch (covering London nightlife).

Lloyd’s personal transition from traditional offline media to the pure online blog format is indicative of the great state of flux in media today. We face a situation in which new technologies allow us to spend more and more time interacting with ‘media’ while simultaneously forcing long-established media brands face to challenge many of the assumptions of their long-standing business models.

Lloyd, thanks for meeting with us.

1. Explain a bit the idea behind MessyMedia and what role you see blogs playing in the media landscape going forward.

We launched MessyMedia with two fundamental propositions: i. The tools to publish online are now so extremely low-cost they are effectively free. This has led to an explosion in online publishing, most of it in the form of amateur writing (ie, “blogs”). People have written a lot about how blogs represent a new form of free expression and how it’s going to change journalism, etc. etc. etc., but really all blogs are is a manifestation of the sudden ubiquity and access to online publishing tools. Less than a decade ago, you’d have spent getting on for half a million quid on a content management system, an ad-serving system and a stats/user-tracking system. These days, those things are effectively free. Just like the Gutenberg press powered new forms of expression, so Movable Type (named after that press) is enabling people to reach audiences with what they want to say.

 

ii. In the UK, those new tools have led to a great many new sites appearing, but very few of them have attempted to take on established media players. Contrast that with the US, where blog networks and large special-interest sites running on blogging platforms have attracted massive audiences with sharp, pacy words written to professional, or near-professional, standards. We perceive a gap in the market between amateur publishing such as blogs on the one hand, and mainstream media on the other. We want to play in that gap. So those two propositions - cheap publishing technology combined with a gap in the market - led to MessyMedia.

 

2. How do you see established offline media brands adapting to the shift in consumer attention online?

They’ve already shifted enormously, something they’re often not given credit for. The interesting thing in the last couple of years has been the extent to which newspapers in particular have embraced “blogging” as a format - not just a technical format, but an editorial format. A looser, chattier, more direct style has emerged, and it’s often very powerful. What’s interested us is how specialist offline publications like the Spectator have plugged into a whole new way of talking about their specialist areas. It’s interesting - most commentators have focused on the dread term “user-generated content”, while the really interesting stuff has been happening in journalist-generated content, which has changed rapidly and interestingly to adapt to the new medium.

3. One of the traditional foundations of newspaper revenues has been classifieds. What are your thoughts on the developments in the classifieds sector in the last 18 months?

Newspapers have already seen their classifieds revenues collapse as a result of online. But we may be reaching an interesting point here. All a classifieds advertiser wants is response - that’s much more important than cost. If newspapers can drive response, online and offline, they’ll still have a business. As more and more classifieds providers come onstream, what will happen to the response rate of any one of them? Will older, established media continue to keep some audiences, and thus guarantee some response?

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I think the main challenge for any new online player is establishing a brand and an audience quickly, and then ensuring some loyalty. People are creatures of habit, so you need to be habit-forming. This is the main advantage existing brands have - they’ve already become a habit for their audience. If you can provide functionality which is cool, original and useful, and if you can get in front of people often enough to become a habit, the sky’s the limit. That’s why the Web’s so exciting.

Thanks Lloyd. We agree the web’s an exciting place. We’ll be making a few announcements about Nestoria’s role at the intersection of web2.0 and ‘old media’ in the coming weeks. For those looking to see the future of online journalism (or just an entertaining read) we recommend subscribing to Westmonster. You can follow MessyMedia, predictably, via their blog

.

past Nestoria interviews: Adam Samuel, Gabor Cselle, Gregory Marler.

This month we speak with Adam Samuel, author of Nubricks, an influential international real estate blog documenting the ins and outs of overseas property. Along with great articles, Nubricks Overseas Property Podcasts probe a bit deeper to some of the issues affecting the international property development industry and have garnered a strong following of listeners seeking a snapshot on the different overseas markets emerging.

Adam, thanks for making the time to speak with us.

1. As a long time observer of the market, how has the current state of the mortgage market changed the outlook for overseas properties?

The overseas property industry has come of age over the past 5-10 years with new emerging markets appearing on the scene on what seems like a weekly basis, as soon is Thailand heralded as an investment hotspot Vietnam comes along as the new kid on the block. The strength of the established property markets of Spain, France and Portugal is very much associated with a strong, diverse mortgage market, offering buyers and investors the opportunity to borrow money against property in these locations. These overseas property markets are essentially driven by wealthy northern Europeans seeking a warm climate in close proximity, that is easily accessible through a choice of low-cost carrier alternatives and above isn’t too far out of their comfort zone where property practices are well established and ‘safer’ than say an emerging market it is these factors which ensure these countries remain the most popular and diverse within the market for overseas property. The lack of mortgage option available to foreign purchasers in many of the new emerging countries means they enjoy limited appeal from mainly cash rich investors who are able to purchase buy property outright. They are perceived as being riskier with greater risk of fraudulent buying practices taking place due to poorly regulated marketplace. The upside of a market being less accessible means property prices on the whole are lower and as the property market there develops there is greater potential for a return on your investment.

In general when mortgages become available in an overseas property market it opens up to the mass market and demand increase and prices go up. This can have a negative effect because once the market is saturated with buyers there is an oversupply of property and funding is too easy to get, the market will stagnate and even begin to fall in value in some areas. This has happened to Spain in recent years.

2. What are your hot tips for the overseas investor?

2008-2009 are rumoured to be tougher years economically speaking, with the cost of credit increasing and the ability to get credit becoming harder. This shouldn’t necessarily put you off buying abroad because it means as a buyer you are in the driving seat and in a strong negotiating position to call the shots. Don’t be afraid to ask for a deal, they can only say no. Don’t get your heart set on something and be prepared to walk away, in markets such as Spain and Portugal, a flurry of building has meant thousands of new builds are reaching completion which translates to a raft of properties to choose from.

Buying to sell in this climate can be very difficult, finding that property that you can flip and still make a decent profit on these days is tough and requires you do some serious homework into locations, who’s buying and what is driving property price increases if its just hearsay I’d think again. Buying to let is a more solid prospect but again market good research is key, if your buying location is seasonal will the rent you achieve at maximum occupancy cover all dead periods a resort with year-round appeal might be better or invest in a condo hotels where management and more importantly marketing is someone else’s worry.

 

Due diligence might sound boring but time and again continues to be a stumbling block for thousands of buyers of property abroad who make the same mistakes. Independent legal advice is mandatory before you sign on that dotted line. It is imperative that you have recourse for any further problems and by ensuring you are working with a reputable agent/developer goes a long way towards damage limitation. Talk to other buyers in forums or at exhibitions, don’t just take the sales patter at face value and jump on the next plane with the intention of buying a property in a weekend. Be strong, come back to the UK, talk it over with family or friends and then decide whether you want to proceed or not. Finally in terms of where is best to invest I would keep an eye on the Malaysian property market, a real estate investment in Slovakia looks a good bet and Cape Verde has a lot going for it long term.

 

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online property search sector in the last 18 months?

Online property search has moved on leaps and bounds from the days of an html site with 20 pages in 2001. The overseas property industry in particular I feel still see very little attempt at innovation and agents are very reactive as opposed to proactive in their marketing approaches, it takes a long time and a lot of persuasion for the market to adopt new technologies. It has taken 5 years for property professionals to realise the value of internet marketing and jump on the bandwagon.

In the world of property portals, it seems they are being launched all the time and come and go. The established players don’t seem to want innovate which I believe is principally because they don’t have to. Online property searchers have been conditioned to accept that this is the only way to search. Whilst mapping has proved to be a boon for UK and US online property search, it is difficult to implement with overseas property, as there are vast differences between different countries with some not even having been mapped online yet. Nestoria seems to be a UK property search trying to innovate the search process but trying to compete on a level with established and trusted brands is a challenge. I think this will change as the buying demographic gets younger and demands technology advancements, this shift leaves open a market space for models like Nestoria and the potential to gain market share.

 

Video feels like the last known frontier for this industry, as the costs of hosting and syndicating video become cheaper and easier to embed it will become more of a standardised feature within property listings, after all what better way to view a property without having to visit it in person.

 

4. What do you think are the challenges that a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I think an inherent problem facing the Internet as a whole today is choice, today there is too much choice in every genre from social networking to online property search and the space has become crowded and noisy. Success online today has come down to shouting loudest above the rest. With blue chip internationals cottoning on to the value of organic search engine rankings and with multimillions to throw at online marketing, good optimization is becoming a fundamental part of online success as the competition becoming fierce. You may have the world’s best product or service but if you can’t be found online you are at a disadvantage from the outset.

I think that the vertical search engine model has two challenges; monetisation and adoption. The model needs to be able to sustain itself and for that it needs customer eyeballs and fast. Without a doubt, adoption is the single most important factor, as without an audience, the model is nothing more than great technology, the audience represents a revenue stream whether that be pay per lead, subscription or advertising. I think Nestoria is doing well in the adoption stakes but we can all try and tweak things to make them better.

 

Thanks again Adam for sharing your insights. We’ll keep working on the innovation. For anyone contemplating moving abroad or buying a second home abroad whether it be an investment or vacation home, make Nubricks.com an essential part of your reading research!

past Nestoria interviews: Gabor Cselle, Gregory Marler, Artem Pavlenko

Recently I had the chance to speak at the UK Geography industry’s annual conference - AGI 2007. The final event of the conference was a discussion about ‘neogeography’ versus traditional geography (christened ‘paeleogeography’ by former Nestora interviewee Ed Parsons at the event). There was much debate about what the term neogeography means and whether neogeography is at odds with or complementary to paleogeography. There was however no disputing that neogeography has caught the industry’s attention.

One example of neogeography in action is Gregory Marler’s recently begun Living with Dragons project. Gregory will spend the next few years living without commercial maps! We are delighted to announce Nestoria will be sponsoring Living with Dragons for the next few months to see how Gregory’s experiment turns out.

Gregory created his first website at the age of 12. After completing college he went to work on online production at the New Statesman. While there Gregory worked on the new website launch and it’s many new blogs. After a couple of years, he decided it was time to experience university life before he got to old. This month Gregory moved to Durham to start a degree in Computer Science. He forgot to pack some maps, and has yet to see his first dragon.

To kick off the partnership, we’ve invited Gregory to be this month’s Nestoria interviewee.

1. Explain the idea behind the ‘Living with Dragons’ project.

Well the whole story of how it began is on the blog, but it can be cut down to something quite short. I made the decision to move to Durham, after only having spent 2 days there. In spring I looked on the OpenStreetMap, a non-commercial mapping project and Durham was very white/blank, it almost said “here be dragons”. So as I was into this amateur mapping stuff, and liking adventure, I decided I would go out and map it without knowing where I was going. I moved here in October and set up the website to keep me knowing my purpose while readers of the blog can make sure I don’t cheat.

2. What sorts of response have you got?

Well it’s only been a week since I started but I’ve brought it up in a lot of conversations. A bit risky seeing as these are new friends I’m trying to make and everyone at home thinks I’m obsessed and a geek going to mapping conventions. Everyone here has been so interested that no conversation has gone the same way. I’ve discovered that archaeology students have a big interest in the map, the computer society would even like me to do a talk. On the business side it is looking like several organisations want to get onboard, such as the wonderful support from Nestoria.

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online geography sector (maps, etc) in the last 18 months?

Well I haven’t been following the whole sector closely but I’ve had an eye on OpenStreetMap related activity for some time. OSM seemed to flourish in the last year with more people suddenly being aware of the community mapping project and it becoming easier and easier to join in. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to the conference but listening to the podcasts we don’t just have to be mapping now. Take a break and play with the maps, make some art, program scripts that play with the data. How the user holds and controls the map has moved online sites to use slippy maps and even globes. Now we, the users, want to be overlaying stuff on maps: photos, lines and routes, hotels, even disaster areas in foreign countries.

 

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I think the challenge that applies to many online services is to maintain a good user interface that is simple. For a vertical search engine you want to be adding more search options. With the aim of allowing the user to tell you exactly what they want to find, or even which options they’re not bothered but would prefer. This is great but too many options and suddenly the balance will flip and they’d rather search vague terms in a general web search or phoning several local estate agents.

Thanks Gregory, we’ll work hard to keep it simple. Best of luck with the mapping. For those readers interested in following Gregory’s progress please subscribe to Living with Dragons.

past Nestoria interviews: Artem Pavlenko, Harvey Edgecombe, Marc Wick.

One of the aspects of Nestoria that we get the most comments about is our integration of maps with property and local information. New developments in the online mapping world are of keen interest to us, and so it’s with pleasure that we today interview Artem Pavlenko, creator of Mapnik - a free toolkit for developing mapping applications.

Artem is an independent software developer and consultant specializing in all things ‘mapping’ based in Oxford, UK. He got involved in GEO in 1996 when he joined Cadcorp as a developer. Since then he has worked with many clients and projects including Infotech Enterprises and more recently Yotta. His main interest now is FOSS software development.

Artem, thanks for agreeing to speak with us

1. Explain the idea behind Mapnik.

When I started Mapnik about two years ago, there wasn’t any Open Source software around which would produce ‘good looking maps’. Most projects were GIS orientated, meaning all efforts would go into supporting OGC standards and quality of rendering or cartography tended to be overlooked.

This situation changed when Google Maps arrived. Their maps looked good, worked well and everybody liked them. Being an independent developer I wanted a toolkit I could use in my daily work to make maps like that, so I started Mapnik.

 

2. Where is Mapnik used?

Mapnik is a relatively young project, but it has already a few users worldwide. It’s mainly used to create custom maps for the web. Here are some examples: 10east.com who are also hosting mapnik.org, use Mapnik to render maps for their Bolt-On-Maps service. Kosmosnimki is a Moscow based company whose aim is to create a mosaic of satellite imagery covering the entire Russian territory. They use Mapnik to render a topographic map of Russia. Others include Heritage Walks in Auckland, Freemap for walkers in the UK, Placebase, UK Cycle Map and of course OpenStreetMap.

3. What’s next for Mapnik?

There are lots of ideas. I started some work on a GUI which I hope will allow more people to get involved in online cartography. I’m also planning to add more comprehensive styling capabilities, improve text rendering and more besides. One of the critiques about Mapnik is a lack of documentation - I’m hoping to improve in this area. Mapnik is a collaborative effort and if you’re a developer or just have some ideas do get in touch.

4. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online geography sector (maps, etc) in the last 18 months?

Is that when GMap arrived? I think there was a dramatic change in the last 18 months. Suddenly everyone realised (almost) everything can have a location attached, and as a result on-line mapping has become a vibrant area. Also I think we’re getting to the stage when mobile based mapping devices will be a hot spot. I can quite easily imagine walking along a street anywhere in the UK and receiving location based information, not to mention ‘spam’ on my mobile phone, just because its has GPS, Wifi etc.

5. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

Perhaps, providing the best possible user experience, which most certainly will include on-line mapping, is a big challenge. Users are getting more sophisticated and they want to see more detailed, more up-to-date and more personalised maps while looking for property to buy or to let. Is there a school near-by, how easy is it to get to the train station on a bike… Community based efforts to collect data like OpenStreetMap can play a big role in this area. And tools like Mapnik could help to visualise this data.

Thanks Artem, you’re right, providing the best possible user experience is a big challenge. It’s exactly that challenge that lead us to start Nestoria. For those interested in following Mapnik’s progress please subscribe to the Mapnik news feed.

past Nestoria interviews: Harvey Edgecombe, Marc Wick, Nick Black.

For this month’s Nestoria Interview we have the pleasure of speaking with Harvey Edgecombe, the man behind property blog Renthusiast. Based in London, Harvey works for a private property investment vehicle and is responsible for business development and research.

Harvey, thanks for speaking with us.

1. Tell us a bit about your experiences blogging about property for the last few years. What sorts of interactions have you had as a result? Most importantly, has it helped business?

Blogging is very good for business, I see it as a vital communication tool and I’ve managed to build a portfolio of contacts including developers, agents, and numerous potential clients to name a few. Plus, through blogging, I’m able to keep my finger on the pulse of real estate technology, which changes rapidly. Also, the ability to express my thoughts and people respecting my opinion to some degree is very rewarding.

2. As a keen observer of the market, do you think the ‘impending housing crash’ will become reality?

I think it is already a reality for some people. For people who are prudent with their money, they should be able to weather the storm, but for those who are careless and speculative, they are bound to feel the effects as interest rates and the costs associated with borrowing money continue to rise. In the UK, I think the housing market will probably feel the effects of the sub-prime crisis that’s affecting North America, but I don’t think it will be as dramatic over here as it is currently in the US. Overall, the UK economy appears resilient, but the US dollar dropping in value, which is worrying, since it is currently the global benchmark currency.

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the property search sector in the last 18 months?

Amazing. There have been so many new and innovative services that it’s hard to keep up. Search is crucial to the property business, but I don’t think it gets the respect it deserves in the wider industry. Newspapers, print magazines and other forms of media have always played a crucial role in the real estate business. It’s how people find their property. When I moved to London in the late 90’s, I rented my flat through the Loot newspaper, which was recommended to me by a friend. Subsequently I recommended it to others including my sister when she was planning her move to London.

Today, if I were moving to a new city or recommending a service, I most certainly would start on-line, as would most people, as the web is now an essential part of life. The innovation in property search in the last 18 months stems from the frustration that most of us found when using clunky online search tools of the past; most of which were not at all customer focused and user friendly. Fortunately things are beginning to change.

 

 

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I think the biggest challenge facing Nestoria and the vertical search world is remaining relevant to the consumer and not becoming ‘over-developed’ for lack of a better word. Again, it seems like every other day, there is some new company with some new product or API which seems to be the ‘must-have ’ tool for the moment. Reality is that many of these tools that we rave about today will be long forgotten in the not too distant future. Is there a bubble in web 2.0? I hate using the term, because it gets thrown around so much. But I think right now, with all the innovation going on, the biggest challenge is to keep eyes focused on the consumer.

Who are your consumers, and what do they want? Do they want Facebook? Video search? The developer community gets excited when something new comes along that they like. The question to ask yourself is will your consumers like it. And if they like it, will they use it and recommend it to their friends?

 

Thanks Harvey. Wise words. As engineers there’s always a temptation to think ‘yet another feature’ will create user satisfaction. It’s exactly to prevent that sort of mentality that we take such a numbers based approach to Nestoria. We continually measure what happens on the site and take our cues from user behaviour.

Renthusiast is always a pleasure. For anyone interested in a unique perspective on the turbulent world of property, I highly recommend subscribing.

past Nestoria interviews: Marc Wick, Nick Black, Fleming Madsen.

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, here at Nestoria we work hard on the issue of relevance. Put simply, do you get what you searched for? In the context of property search we believe this consists of two parts: did we identify the location you meant, and did we then show you relevant results for that query. To help us with the first part we rely on all sorts of tools, from commercial geodata sets like Tele Atlas, to the low-tech physical atlas we have in the office. But as a ‘lean and mean’ (well actually we think of ourselves as ‘lean and friendly’) start-up we’re always on the look out for clever ways to solve problems without stretching our budget.

One such tool that we couldn’t work without is GeoNames an open source database of geographic information set up by Marc Wick. Happily Marc has agreed to be this month’s Nestoria interviewee.

Marc Wick has held various positions as software engineer and database expert in the financial and technical industry for Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS), Telekurs and Siemens Transportation Systems. He is now working as self-employed software engineer and consultant in Switzerland, and has a degree in Computer Science from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

Marc, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

1. Explain the idea behind geonames.org

GeoNames is a global gazetteer, aggregating local data sets and combining information from various sources like national mapping agencies, census data, postal codes, digital elevation models and many more. A tremendous amount of data is freely available but not easily accessible as the data is often hidden on myriads of national websites. We expect even more official data to become freely available as politicians and authorities begin to understand how important unencumbered access to geodata is for the economy of their country. This process will take some time as it often requires a change of the national mapping agencies’ business models. The idea of the GeoNames project is to aggregate this national and local data and combine it into one global project. The stance of GeoNames is a pragmatic one, the main goal is to provide useful data and web services.

 

2. What are some of the challenges unique to managing geographic data?

The big challenge is having to deal with countless sources. Official geodata is often managed by local authorities on a subnational or regional level. This adds up to an incredible number of potential sources and all use different data formats, have other data quality, use their own classification scheme and are published in local languages and scripts. It is a challenging task to harmonize and consolidate all this information.

3. What are your thoughts on the developments in the online geography sector (maps, etc) in the last 18 months?

Online geography has become a commodity feature, mainly in the wake of Google Maps. Some web developers even start considering to remove maps from their site since online maps have become so common place and ‘uncool’. We also see a separation between traditional GIS and online maps. It no longer requires a GIS specialist to integrate maps in an application. Maps have become part of every web developer’s tool set. Commoditization of GPS enabled devices like photo cameras will strengthen this trend in the future.

4. What are the challenges you think a vertical search engine for property like Nestoria faces?

I could imagine that the main technical challenge is to get and parse the data. For the users it is crucial that the data on the site is correct, is frequently updated and the number of attributes parsed and annotated with meaning is also essential. Even more important than the technical challenges is to find and implement the right strategy for the niche between general purpose horizontal search engines like Google and real estate agents, classifieds and real estate platforms on the other hand. Driving traffic to the site and keeping users on the site is certainly another vital key issue.

 

Thanks Marc, you’re very correct. Managing massive data feeds from many different sources, in different formats, and categorized and indexed in different ways is not a trivial challenge. This is exactly the value a vertical search engine like Nestoria adds to the property industry. For those interested in following GeoNames’ progress, I recommend subscribing to the GeoNames blog.

past Nestoria interviews: Nick Black, Fleming Madsen, Mike Price.

Nestoria fans,

as you know we keep an eagle eyed watch on the interweb for new trends in map based services and how they might be applied to the property search space. Today we talk with Nick Black, long time force in the UK geo enthusiast scene, and now co-founder of new map based advertising start up Mappam.

Nick, thanks for talking with us.

1. Explain a bit the concept behind Mappam. Why is it a useful solution for advertisers and for webmasters?

Mappam is about putting your adverts on the map. There are loads of map-mashup sites out there, ranging from high traffic commercial sites like Plazes or Nestoria that use Google Maps as a base map, or community sites like OpenStreetMap, to the hundreds of new map-mashups that appear every week. Mappam gives the people who run these sites a chance to earn some money and gives advertisers a chance to reach a massive audience. As an advertiser, you can visit mappam.com and place an advert, choosing the exact location where you want the ad to appear, and uploading a small icon to represent your ad. The icon you upload will appear on all of our host’s sites. When someone clicks on it, a bubble will pop up, showing your advert. You only pay when someone clicks on the info bubble and is redirected to your site, and you get to choose how much you pay.

 

As a host, you can add one line of Javascript to your existing Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Multimap or OpenStreetMap/OpenLayers map and Mappam ads will appear. When one of your visitors clicks, you earn money.

2. Are you seeing more and more ‘mash-ups’ trying to make the leap from side hobby project to actually becoming a viable business? Why should they choose Mappam versus something like AdSense.

The map-site business model is unproven, to say the least. A major problem with using traditional banner advertising on a map-site is the lack of context - the advertising provider will usually key-word search your site, so a site like OpenStreetMap has adverts for companies selling geo-data, but nothing that is related the geographic context of the site. If map-mashup sites can display adverts on their maps, they will be presenting their users with information that is relevant to them. The users will be happier with their experience, they will be more likely to click on the ad and the site will earn more money (as well as have happier users).

3. What are your thoughts on balancing the need for monetisation with user experience?

User experience is important, but providing the most relevant information is the most important thing. With Mappam, people can monetise their sites and provide relevant information to their visitors at the same time. Banner ads are bad for maps for two reasons: they don’t provide relevant information and they take up loads of space. No-one wants a map-site with half the screen taken up with adverts. Mappam ads are small icons that take up just a tiny amount of screen space - making for a much better user experience.

4. What possibilities do you see for map based advertising specifically in the property sector?

There a load of opportunities for map advertising within the property sector and we’re really happy to have Nestoria onboard as Mappam launch partners. For those with property to sell, Mappam provides a great platform for getting the message across. There’s also a lot of opportunity for providing relevant information to prospective house buyers - I bet Ikea would love to be able to reach everyone who’s going to buy a flat in Putney. If they combined the Mappam API with Nestoria’s API, they would know the size of house you were looking at and could advertise your perfect kitchen. Imagine that!

Thanks Nick. Great to see that the tidal wave of technical innovation in online cartography over the last 18 months is now starting to be matched by business innovation as well. We’ll obviously be watching Mappam closely.

past Nestoria interviews: Fleming Madsen, Mike Price, Prashant Agarwal.