The popular Whrrl app is now available for Android OS users, additionally, there’s also a custom Whrrl widget for your Android phone. The features of Whrrl for Android include:
. Check In, Share Experiences, Tag Friends to Check-In: Users check in to the places they go with total control over privacy level, and the ability to share updates on Facebook and Twitter. They can add photos and notes to their check-ins to share their experiences, and also tag others into their check in. Photos and notes from people checked in together are pooled for easy sharing.
. Societies: Every place has its own Society, and there are now over 3,000 Societies nationwide that users join by checking in. Whether users are a Live Music fan, mountain biker or Mexican food fanatic, there’s a Society for everyone. Users can create their own Societies, too.
. Recommendations: Users can create recommendations to capture and share their ideas for specific things to do at places. They can target recs to any Societies. Photos can be added to any recommendation, too.
. Influence Points — Every time a user checks in, they earn points. When they create recommendations, they get more points. People can “want to,” “did it” and “re-recommend” each other’s recommendations, and get even more points. As users earn points, they level up in Societies and unlock special powers within Whrrl.
. Society Rewards: Hundreds of merchants (and counting!) have created prizes exclusive to Whrrl users. Users get a chance to win free gas at Murphy USA’s around the country, free drinks, shows or rooms in Las Vegas, and other unique prizes at nearby merchants.
. Custom Whrrl Widget: We’ve created a custom Whrrl widget for Android that will turn it into a compass for ideas people want to do. Based on where they are, Whrrl will show users the closest ideas saved to their want-to list. From there, they can click the idea and map it.
Archives for October 11, 2010
GIS Analyst Job Scores a Spot in CNN Money Best Jobs in America
For most of us in the industry, we already know this, however, just this week a CNN Money.com feature included the position of a “GIS Analyst” at #97 in their list of 100 Best Jobs in America. Indeed this is a high tech growth field with loads of opportunity, but it’s great to see some mainstream recognition for the industry and for GIS as a profession. Obviously, the position of “GIS Analyst” can be fairly broad in scope and have a wide ranging description of duties and required skills, but there’s no arguing that indeed it is a great job and there’s plenty of opportunity. A plus in the article is that the position scored highest grades for the variables future growth and flexibility. The article lists the Median pay as $59,000 and a top pay of $82,000 – indeed testament to the wide range of duties and skills associated with such a position. Browsing job boards for GIS Analyst positions you will no doubt find jobs posted with a salary of below $30K along with opportunities to earn well into the $70’s and up. See the article here on CNN
Mobilize your ArcGIS via the ArcGIS API for iOS and via PDF Maps reader for iOS
I’m hoping now that with the release of the Esri ArcGIS API for iOS that we’ll finally start seeing some awesome, location-aware and location intelligent iPhone apps hitting the market, rather than the fluffy, wanna-be, geo smart apps that are currently flooding the market. Case in point, in a recent search for a mobile app from our local bus transit corporation, all that comes up i the iTunes shop is a basic third=party app that actually seems to be an “official” app, however, upon use of the app one realizes that all it appears to do is scrape a couple of RSS feeds and pulls static PDF documents of bus schedules from the web – indeed its a disappointing, total fail of an application.. even worse, its a paid for app that I imagine many unsuspecting users are paying good $$ for only to realize that they bought another app that fails to deliver anything useful. A search for an official app from our local transit provider turned up nothing… amazing considering the fine GIS department they have, no doubt with a wealth of data locked up. (Let me contrast this with a free iOS app from U Michigan that even serves up real-time bus pick up data like “next bus arriving in 2 minutes” – this is the kind of info people want and need on their mobile app)
I suspect that now that the API for iOS from Esri many local governments, utilities, and other power, enterprise users will quickly start mobilizing their data and extending reach of this fabulous data to the masses. To download or get more information about ArcGIS API for iOS, visit the ArcGIS Resource Center
A reminder, that users of the popular MAPublisher cartographic software can now also easily mobilize their data and projects, extending the reach of the app to the mobile arena thanks to the release of the free PDF Maps reader for iOS. About the app… PDF Maps is the first application of its kind designed specifically for using geographically-aware PDF files on portable devices and opens the door to allowing any map to be GPS-aware. It will give users the power to interact with georeferenced PDF maps and images directly from their iOS device with viewing performance levels well above other mobile PDF viewing applications. See more details
CartoView – free web map authoring mashups from Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Gowalla and Twitter
An interesting, free, webmap authoring tool from CartoView. CartoView is a free web map authoring tool from CartoLogic that allows users to easily create web maps using Google Maps, Google Earth browser plug-in or Openlayers.
CartoView Features:
- flexible, just download the source, include your plugins, edit the plugin configurations and you have your online map.
- Create your custom plugin or mashup and include it with many downloadable plugins in the same map.
- write your plugin once and use it with different online mapping apis (google maps, google earth plug-in, openlayers)
- easily customize the look and feel of your map page with themes or select a predefined theme.
See the demo page of maps created with CartoView with mashups from Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Gowalla and Twitter.
