About a year ago, openplaces.com founder Fred Lalonde tweeted about Apple secretly acquiring the company that made Pushpin, a mapping API his company was using:
That company was Placebase, as described by its CEO Jaron Waldman in this video two years ago:
Written by Jonny Evans, Applle Holic at the Computerworld blog
Apple’s purchase of personal assistant app developer, Siri, marks an intensification of the company’s battle with former ally, Google. Apple’s buying spree seems likely to intensify, too, as the company has hired a senior executive to lead its purchases.
Siri creates useful software which uses geo-location and the Internet to help users track down locally-placed entertainment and services. You can use it to find the best local bar, a taxi to get you there and what’s on at the local movie theater once you get there.
Make me happy with Apple’s App Search
Speaking to SearchEngine Land, John Battelle points out that Siri is “a voice-activated meta-search tool”.
He believes Apple intends to use the tool as the basis to create a search solution for apps, speculating the Cupertino-based company has no plan to take on Google’s as a Web search engine.
Potentially implemented at the iPhone’s system level, this new search solution might explore conventional online listings, alongside user recommendations and ratings carried on various social networks in order to deliver its recommendations.
If made available as part of the iPhone OS, then developers might be able to call on Siri to drive search within their applications, giving Apple an instant place in the new App Search landscape.
Location matters. We know the iPhone already has GPS inside and hosts technology from SkyHook Wireless to enable location-sensing on the basis of local WiFi networks. All this leads to Google Maps, right?
Wrong.
Written by Raji Mohanam, Knowledge Management Specialist at the Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF)
I attended the NTEN Annual Conference (April 8-10) in Atlanta, Georgia. NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) is an organization that helps nonprofits navigate the high-speed, constantly-changing landscape that defines the world of technology today.
I was among 1400 participants comprised of both tech gurus as well as the tech-challenged. However, the mind-boggling array of workshops and sessions ensured everyone learned something new.
Policy Map, a recent addition to the Penn Library website, is a great resource to go to for up to date demographic data. Just tap in a city or zip code and you have access to thousands of indicators related to demographics, crime, money and income, real estate, education, energy, and health. In addition to zip code and city, you can search by census tract, state, county, school districts, and legislative or Congressional districts. Policy Map generates its data in the form of maps, data tables and reports which can be easily exported as jpegs or pdfs. The number of indicators is noteworthy. You can get demographic breakdowns for ethnicity, religion, voting, etc. from a lot of sources but Policy Map offers many additional profile handles as illustrated by a search I did comparing obesity figures in Philadelphia in 2008 versus 2006.
Click here to read this article by Sharon Black on the Annenberg Library blog on February 22, 2010.
There comes a time in every thinking person’s life when he or she realizes that unrestrained generalizations, educated guesses, and hand-waving observations just don’t ring with the same sweet authority as real, well-supported, factual arguments. Whether you’re working on a thesis, putting together a company report, or trying to end a flame-war you started on the forums, solid research skills are about as indispensable to one’s intellectual prowess as the plastic toothpick in a Swiss-army knife is to a pulled-pork junkie.
I should say now before going any further that the greatest asset in one’s toolbox is a sharp, inquisitive mind. Learning how to skim through articles, interrogate texts with the wit and determination of an octopus, and dig through bibliographies for oft-cited references takes practice. But in time it can make the difference between professional and amateur. On the other hand, knowing where to start can be more than half the battle. Here’s my short list of useful research tools on the web.
This is a new one to me, as it will be to a lot of you, but nonetheless it’s one of the most useful tools for visualizing statistics I’ve seen in a long time. Basically, PolicyMap took a bunch of public statistics (population density, average household income, demographics, overweight population, economic hotzones, etc.) and created color-coded overlays for interactive maps (similar to the Googlemaps interface). It’s so good I should have thought of it.
Say you want to know what the obesity levels look like around Bowling Green, Kentucky. Type in the zip code, select the statistic and in less time than it takes to eat a Twinkie, you can see an accurate geographic representation of how many people need to stop eating Twinkies. Now zoom out and see just how the rest of the U.S. stacks up by comparison. Warning: you may feel the sudden compulsion to renew your gym membership. The data sets are incredibly comprehensive (want to know how many choreographers there are in Temecula, CA?) and you can see convenient graphs and tables and even search by congressional districts, counties or school zones. Anyone in public policy, political science, market research or analysis will fill find this tool insanely useful. And those looking for a new home, trying to start a small business, or doing some well researched regional trash-talking will find it equally beneficial.
Click here to read this article and the rest of the list by Alexander Bandazian in Loudbus Magazine on January 25th, 2010.
Seth at Computerworld has noticed Apple’s purchase of Placebase, the former mapping service company that GigaOm was praising last year. Of course, this begs the question: Will Apple be rolling their own maps?
As Gizmodo says, Apple uses the technology they buy (Coverflow, for example). We were unfamiliar with the service, but GigaOm describes some sweet features like PushPin, which provided developers with an API that could layer commercial information, crime data, etc. on a map. For a nice example of PushPin at work, check out PolicyMap.
Now for the baseless assumptions. Google maps appear in a number of Apple products, like the iPhone, iPhoto and iWeb. Perhaps Apple plans to stuff their own solutions into those slots. Or perhaps they’re after a certain technology from Placebase and not the whole enchilada.
Note that the purchase went down back in July. Seth has also discovered that PlaceBase’s founder and former CEO, Jaron Waldman, is now a part of Apple’s "Geo Team," which sounds like theJustice League but with Al Gore in charge.
Click here to read this article by Dave Caolo on TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog) on Thursday, October 1st, 2009.
The recent acquisition of a small mapping service by Apple in July left observers speculating about different things, from Apple trying to replace Google Maps on the iPhone to the once-friendly companies moving to fierce competition.
In July, Apple acquired Los Angeles-based Placebasee, which is a small deal. Placebase offers an API which allows developers to create customized features and functions not available on Google Maps.
Placebase technology has been used in a well-known product PolicyMap. Using PolicyMap you can explore geographic information through maps, tables and reports. Many organizations including The Washington Post and Wachovia are using PolicyMap.
Written on October 01, 2009 by Darrell Etherington
Google and Apple’s very public, very messy ongoing lover’s spat is obviously not doing either company many favors in the media. Apple looks to be taking steps to ensure that should it need to, it can go without the do-everything leading Internet search provider.
To that end, it’s finally been confirmed this week by ComputerWorld that Apple did indeed acquire Google Maps competitor Placebase in July of this year. Former Placebase CEO Jaron Waldman is now part of the “Geo Team” at Apple, which suggests that the company was acquired so that Cupertino could work on its own, in-house Google Maps alternative.
Our own sister site GigaOM ran a profile of Placebase back in May 2008. It detailed the way in which Placebase’s PushPin product was able to stay afloat and compete with Google Maps, which offered its services completely free of charge. Placebase offered white label solutions for a price.
Ever since it came out that Apple purchased a mapping service three months ago, there has been increasing speculation about whether or not Apple will replace Google Maps on the iPhone with their own maps and whether the relationship between Apple and Google is deteriorating.
The new application PolicyMap was the product of Los Angeles based Placebase, which Apple acquired in July. The PolicyMap application can be customised and has certain features that the current Google Maps does not so in a way it would some sense to use that instead.
Or, is Apple making sure they have a back up strategy for maps should they and Google ultimately go their separate ways?
Apple quietly acquired a mapping firm called Placebase in early July. Watchers say that Apple needs its own mapping service in order to reduce its dependency on Google Maps, but there’s more to it than meets the eye.
The credit for this one goes to Seth Weintraub, a Computerworld blogger who discovered the following tweet by Fred Lalonde dated back to July 7:
Apple bought PlaceBase – all hush hush. Pushpin site taken offline. Hyperlocal iPhone?