Author Archive for Ed

Open Source Mapping roundup

Published by Ed on January 23, 2007 in Google Maps and tools. Comments

A quick overview of what is happening in the open source mapping world:

We recently interviewed Ed Parsons on this blog.

It was a while ago but OpenStreetMap now have permission to use the Yahoo aerial imagery to plot roads onto – see their entry on it. This will prove particularly useful in cities, where the imagery tends to be good and GPS reception tends to be bad.

Steve Coast (from opengeodata.org) has reached day 16 of his ‘Month of OSM’. This is an interesting approach to funding open source projects where Steve worked out what he would need financially to support his working on OpenStreetMap for a month. He put out a request for this amount to the community and it was raised pretty quickly. If you sponsored him and want to check that he is working you can use the ‘Stevecam’ (if he is not working you get some tasteful curtains instead).

This weekend (27-28 Jan 2007) OpenStreetMap are having a mapping party in Central London. If you are around and want to help please do, no GPS required (due in part to the Yahoo imagery).

Ordnance Survey geo mash-up conference summary

Published by Ed on October 27, 2006 in about us and web 2.0. Comments

Last Friday Nestoria was at the Ordnance Survey geo mash-up conference.

The talks ranged from a simple ‘how to’ through to discussions on the best ways to share geographic data and some heated audience debate. Examples ranged from plotting schools on a map to calculating journey times around the country.

There were also two panel sessions where the audience were able to ask questions and differing views were expressed by the panelists. One of the most contentious questions was ‘who will pay’ which resulted in some fairly polarized opinions. One extreme was that the users should pay and that the current free data was not viable long term. The other view was that the content could be free because the cost of delivery was so low and so enabling other revenue streams that were not possible a few years ago.

Representing the ‘new way’ were some engineers from Google who we ate lunch with. It was a good opportunity to thank them for the maps API which has made that part of our job so much easier. There did not appear to be any representatives from Yahoo or Microsoft. MultiMap’s Sean Phelan was there though and gave a talk, laying to rest any doubts that they are being left behind – we’ll be watching their progress very closely in case they can help us.

It was pleasing that Nestoria was mentioned in a few of the talks, mostly for our recent integration of OpenStreetMap and our use of GeoRSS. It was disappointing that there were not more representatives of commercial mash up sites there as it would have helped give a more real world feel. There was a ready acceptance of most of the delegates to facilitate mashups and greater data sharing, but an uncertainty as to what steps should be taken first.

An interesting day with many acquaintances made and renewed. It is great to see this sort of enthusiasm for what we are doing from the Geo community.

Open source mapping experimentation

Published by Ed on October 20, 2006 in Google Maps and technical. Comments

Which is the smallest ceremonial county in Britain, yet has the largest parliamentary constituency?

The answer is (of course) the Isle of Wight. Located just off the South coast of England it is quite a special place, and not just because of the Wikipedia provided trivia above. In May 2006 a swarm of mapping enthusiasts (organized by OpenStreetMap) descended on “The Island” to map it out using handheld GPS units. By walking, cycling and driving all the roads and paths that they could they captured all the data that was needed to create a detailed map.

We are now delighted that, as an experiment, when you search for Isle of Wight property on Nestoria we display maps generated by this effort. For example, properties to buy in Cowes.

OpenStreetMap Isle of Wight screenshot

For Nestoria this is an interesting chance to be part of an innovative proof of concept. As backers of open source software and the geohacker community, we were happy to help when some members of the OpenStreetMap team approached us about being part of this demo. Volunteer mapping is in it’s infancy, but holds the promise of more up to date data and could be a great tool to cost effectively map parts of the developing world. Nevertheless, this is an experiment, we have no plans to switch away from the high quality maps and satellite photos provided by Google Maps.

Speaking of Google, we want to say a big “thank you” for their brilliant Google Maps API. The API, or programmatic interface, (which we use for the maps on Nestoria) makes this sort of experimentation and innovation possible. It’s the same technique that we used to give you tube lines in London.

London tube lines overlay screenshot

Google’s been great about continually extending and improving the API and working with developers to allow innovation to flourish. Equally, we’d like to thank all the folks in the global online mapping community who’ve been brilliant about providing tips, feedback, and generally inspired us. The community is a big one with many contributors, but we’d like to single out the following sites for their help and inspiration: Cool Google Maps, Google Maps Mania, Mapping Hacks, Mikel Maron’s Brainoff, OpenGeoData, and nearby.org.uk.

It will be interesting to see where these experiments lead. The pace of new development in online mapping has really acccelerated in the last few years, and we’re excited that Nestoria can play a small part. Already we are thinking of other interesting overlays that we could add that might help you choose your dream home. One that springs to mind is a night time satellite photo – so that you can see what sort of light pollution you can expect. If you have any other ideas please send us feedback or leave a comment.

Update: read OSM’s point of view directly over at opengeodata.org

Time to Confer

Published by Ed on October 18, 2006 in technical and web 2.0. Comments

A few of us will be attending the UK Geospatial Mash-Up Conference in Southampton this Friday. The event is sponsored by the AGI, the OGC, the BCS, and the Ordnance Survey (OS). The very full agenda features speakers from notable upstarts like OpenStreetMap, familiar stalwarts like MultiMap, and everyone’s favourite 800 pound gorilla – Google Maps. It should be an exciting collision of different projects, people, and perspectives.

We look forward to chatting with the other attendees and are interested in hearing comments and ideas about our website, developer API, drop-in maps, GeoRSS feeds, or whatever else is on your mind. Nestoria will have some space in the demonstration area to show off our work and are sponsoring a contest involving…you guessed it…maps and property. Please drop by to say hello and to try your hand at a little game. The first prize is very nice, and definitely topical.

Maps, mash-ups and abstractions

Published by Ed on October 11, 2006 in API, Google Maps, New Features and technical. Comments

When we started working on nestoria.co.uk we knew that having maps would be vital. Without them browsing for properties is a pain as you need to keep switching from the list of properties to a map to try to work out where things are. We were lucky that Google made it possible.

I’m pleased to announce that out sponsorship of Mapstraction is bearing fruit. We have already started integrating the Mapstraction API into Nestoria. In the near future, this work will allow our users to choose from the most up to date features of all the mapping providers. As we do the integration we are moving some of our code into the Mapstraction library so that others can benefit from it too.

The UK Geospatial Mash-up on the 20 October 2006 should be really interesting, and we flatter ourselves that we are doing well. We have an API, we are supporting open source projects, we make it easy for others to add our listings to their sites, we take part in the developer community and more.

In fact we are hoping to announce yet another open source collaboration in time for the mashup conference. Watch this space.

Food, water, shelter

Published by Ed on August 11, 2006 in New Features. Comments

In the property industry it’s easy to become obsessed with three things: location, location, location. So much so that we sometimes forget about the other essentials in life. Which is why we were delighted earlier this week when several loyal users brought our attention to the fact that food and drink are an essential part of life by asking us to add supermarkets to the local content section of our search results page.

Well dear users, your wish is our command. Starting today you can now see which supermarkets are near your desired home. Just click on the “Shops” tab below the map and enjoy the cornucopia of consumption opportunities that the modern supermarket allows.

Enjoy, and have a good weekend

Anyone need a pint?

Published by Ed on July 6, 2006 in technical. Comments

If you can, please join us tonight at the John Snow pub in Soho. We’re sponsoring this month’s London Perl Mongers meeting.

As heavy users of the computer language perl we’re glad we have a chance to give back to the perl community. Of course, it’s not totally altruistic. We’re hopeful we’ll be able to get some feedback on Nestoria.

We’ll see you there

Bring your own map – we now have an API!

Published by Ed on July 6, 2006 in API, New Features, technical and tools. Comments

A few days ago we added GeoRSS to our site – a relatively little known way of associating items in an RSS feed to their physical locations. Within hours this had been used to create a mashup combining the weather and properties in Islington.

We did not expect that…

Today we are launching the first version of our API. This will let you easily search property listings. Not only do you get where the property is but you also get a thumbnail, details of the property and a link for more information.

We are making this data freely available (subject to a few conditions) because we hope that there is an appetite for it. Getting all the listings together and keeping them up to date is not trivial and we don’t want this to prevent you from doing great things with it.

There is a sweepstake in the office as to what you will do with this data, but I don’t think that we have been imaginative enough. Go forth, have fun and let us know here what you come up with.

We’re Hiring

Published by Ed on July 5, 2006 in about us. Comments

It turns out that making a property search engine is a lot of work. We need some help.

We’re currently recruiting for two internship roles to start 1 August.

If you’re the right candidate we look forward to hearing from you.

GeoRSS anyone?

Published by Ed on June 30, 2006 in New Features and technical. Comments

Over the last few days we’ve had several requests to add GeoRSS tags to our RSS feeds. Well dear users (especially friends in the developer community), your wish is our command. As of now all our RSS feeds are geotagged. Have fun!

If this is all a bit too techie for you, don’t worry. This is one of many small steps we’re taking to allow developers to create tools to make finding a property easier.

If this isn’t techie enough for you, don’t worry either. Next week we’ll be announcing more good news for the developer community. Hopefully in time for next Thursday’s London Perl Mongers meeting, which we are sponsoring. We’ll see you there.

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