GPAURL.COM

May 31, 2010

I forgot to add an address for a fairly random GPA in muskogee, OK for the Muskogee Regional Medical Center (MRMC) so it mess everything up. Got an error on the registration (something about unable to parse the address) and now predictably getting an error when i try to map this GPA. Probably need a bit more error protection and explanation on gpaurl that avoids this problem.

May 31, 2010

muskogee, oklahoma did not resolve correctly to Wikipedia

May 7, 2010

just noticed that neither MSFT Tags or Nokia QRs populated when I tried to map us.mo.sgf.hancockhousealso noted that if you hit enter it not only doesn't work but the GPA goes away and you still see the map of the U.S. -- lee

May 7, 2010

was just playing around and resolving us.ca.nb.4hamct, and it sure takes a long time for the map to populate. Looks like the MSFT tag isn't working either. (That's probably the delay.) Lee

May 7, 2010

still need to Map It if someone just populates the box and hits enter (vs. hitting the "Map It" key)

March 23, 2010

Please add "GPA" in front of "Short code" in the pop up box for countries, cities and states.

March 21, 2010

same for us.ca.nb.sharkeez

March 21, 2010

for some reason us.ca.nb.skz is resolving to the bay area.

March 21, 2010

No big deal, but why does us.ca.mb.skz not resolve to uor standard page? Lee

March 18, 2010

Note that this Address didn't work --6220 W. Farm Road 140, Springfield, MO 65802 -- or at least the shortener for the numeric street didn't work. We'll need to work on that a bit. there are lots of major cities with numbered streets (e.g. kansas City) and we'll need a different algorithm for the shortener for those street addresses. i like the map showing up on the first results but i wanted to click on it, see satellite, etc. We need to add a "Shorten Another Address" to this page so that people can try different addresses. Lee

March 16, 2010

the search box is too small, and the font of words typed in the search box are too small. also, can we add a directions link above the map, or next to the GPA? I still think we need guidance outside of the search box. a) we're doing something very unusual (trying to append a local search string to a GPA or other spot location identifier) and it may not be clear what the box does. b) once someone types something in the internal guidance goes away. I've sent some mock-ups over to talk about. -- Lee

March 12, 2010

just tried irvine and it didn't show the map either?Chris, can you try showing the GPA with '.' between the segments instead of >>? it would be more consistent with our addressing schema? When you do show the map do you show a point showing the exact address? Does it have a pop up box?can we also add a simple 'directions to here' and directions from here under the GPA Name?

March 12, 2010

map didn't show up for some reason this morning for the address 18400 von karman, suite 610, newport beach, ca. it shortened the address but no map. also don't know if the lat./lon was right. now that I think about it I used the wrong address. We'll have to check how the system handles errors.there should be a way to shorten another address from this page without having to go back to the shortener page. how hard would it be to track the recent addresses shortened? when can you roll in the city codes from Stephen's work? can you experiment with 2 letters from each word for the street address also?

March 10, 2010

We'll probably want to work my gpa's into the directions piece of this, and i'm wondering if we want the 'directions to' and directions from to be more static on the page instead of in a pop up box. Part of that is because it'll show better for image capturing for powerpoints, and part of it that it's a pretty big piece of what we want to do. ( think the more normal use case is people trying to get directions to the referenced GPA. Also, we'll likely want to track past GPA's used by the person who hits the GPAURL site -- sort of like links are remembered in url boxes. So we mighthave a recents, perhaps a favorites, and most used category. And finally, we'll want to be able to get directions to the GPA from other GPAs of the users. So myGPAs may have to be a little more front adn center than on the tab.lee

March 9, 2010

note that this black/white tag is the Nokia QR Code, i think they call it. MSFT's tag is color and has triangles and squares. I'll have Stephen send you the specs. on both.

March 9, 2010

meant to ask this earlier. Why so much room at the top? Are you saving a space for an ad or other information?

March 6, 2010

just curious why the GPA Speedfind box shows up on gpaurl.com/us.ca.irvn.htpmc but not on gpaurl.com/us.ca.mb.skzI like the feature and think it's worth polishing off a bit. It may need a little more explanation (e.g. labeling the box with the GPA Speedfind(R) moniker, putting an example of searches outside the box on the bottom. It it's too difficult to do that in the 'chain', then it can be put somewhere else. I don't think it's totally necessary to put it in the 'chain' and it may be confusing. I like the fact that the search results on the google window from Speedfind show the location of the search. (Any way to put a label on that point with the GPA for that address on it or in a pop-up). I would also like to be able to demo a couple of Speedfind searches with GPA URLs (e.g. www.gpaurl.com/us.ca.mb.skz.hotels even if it's hard coded.) (In this situation it'll be way more important to show the GPA Name for the searchpoint, and that may be difficult.)

March 6, 2010

should we think about a limited purpose site that is not password enabled so we could use these things in live demos (without a password -- sort of like we do with GPA Maps)

March 6, 2010

note that the longer business name pushed the speedfind search box to the next line. will need to adjust for that. is it easy to make the traffic switchable?

March 6, 2010

Please add GPA Shortcode on the tabs that open up when you fly over GPA Shortcode.Shouldn't these shortcodes be displayed in all caps? Maybe just ask Alex to use all caps in his db. I was using this to show someone how to get to our office -- www.gpaurl.com/us.ca.irvn.htpmc. It displays the full name of the business, which I guess is ok. We'll want to decide whether this is optimal, but I'm pretty sure right now this is just expedient. Can you underline the ISC in the GPA Name above the map? (e.g. HTPMC) Can you underline the ISC in the pop up information box? (e.g. HTPMC)(If the foregoing is hard we can do it later.)

March 5, 2010

we'll need to make the GPA Earth Database capable of storing Shortcodes (HH) for hancock hangar. will need some rules around them as well. should we have the register a business or register a location link to GPA Earth.com? chris, note the autocomplete of zoomatlas.com. it seems to work for all addresses in the U.S. ! Someday we can do that.

February 27, 2010

Chris, please make the update in a very read and bold box. i just forgot to update and lost a pretty big comment. here's the shortform version of it --- why aren't google, bing, mapquest, etc. making all of the cities and parks and other POIs hyperlinks to more information? I'm guessing either it's difficult or takes up a lot of overhead or space, or is something they've tested and users don't use it. My guess is it's the former. If so, we could possibly use ISC shown on all map bases to be a super short and easy code to enter into a more info. box that would link to the more information on that subject. (Wikipedia or otherwise, and of course a new landing page). we can talk about other ideas and aspects of this. I wrote a few more down, but lost them and don't want to belabor this. Lee

February 27, 2010

We'll need some "What's This?" things to pop up at some point, and we'll need a well thought out and written FAQ fairly soon as well. I like this page and want to put some more effort into the various ways we can bring value to the user (sender and receiver) and monetize and build our brand. --Lee

February 19, 2010

BTW, here’s a fairly simple justification for GPA citycodes. I just realized that the justification for short GPA citycodes is almost exactly the same as the justification (and existence) of short codes for countries, states, etc. The reason it hasn’t happened earlier at this level is the drill down that is required for people to remember them, the absence of small portable nav. devices like gps, phones, etc. that people would like to interface with quickly while on the go, and the absence of something like the internet that is essentially globalizing local information. (Think of things like flikr and google maps that make it much more likely that I might virtually visit China or Thailand on the web, and want to see information and picture and stuff like that, and reference it or send others there, etc etc. ) I think I could make a pretty strong and logical case pointing to a number of technological and sociological phenomenon that make GPAs helpful, and in fact possibly extremely helpful or even necessary in the new digital information world. Someday it might be possible to have a virtual visit a whole museum in Greece by drilling down further and further into micro-local GPAs for that museum. (Maybe that’s just their website, but I could see micro GPAs providing the basis for providing information for an actual visitor and then modifying that approach for virtual visitors as well. ) (These are the sort of things that we’ll probably just want to enable rather than build.) - Lee

February 19, 2010

How hard would it be to create a script that would combine an abbreviation and a full name into an imbedded GPA string? For example, it would read Newport Beach and it’s abbreviation NB and automatically create Newport Beach. Or at least something that would indicate that the N and the B are the letters that represent the imbedded GPA shortcodes that need to be presented differently. (it would probably also need to handle the situation where the short citycode is not capable of being imbedded. ) If we could write that tool then we could just run all of these lists through the engine and not have to do this manually. The other script that would be good to automate is to de-dupe a bunch of shortcodes (say within a state if we get 16 different MLS lists in CA). Should be pretty easy also. It doesn’t have to be fully automatic but hopefully would handle most cases so that people could only handle the exceptions.I still like the idea of trying to get people to engage in helping verify or modify citycodes. It’d be great to get something viral and engaging out of this and might form an integral (and low cost) component of our marketing. - Lee

February 19, 2010

I note that Sharkeez is occasionally (on citysearch at least) listed as Baja Sharkeez. I also note that in some cases it’s listed as Sharkeez Manhattan Beach and Sharkeez Hermosa Beach, etc. What would you think about showing the GPA shortcode for Sharkeez as Sharkeez and the full name as Baja Sharkeez or Sharkeez Manhattan Beach? This would demonstrate that the GPA should move to the shortest name possible among various choices (e.g. Prego Restaurante or International House of Pancakes, Red Point Venture Partners (or Red Point Venture Partners) or even Sharkeez Manhattan Beach or Baja Sharkeez) (Another question is whether Sharkeez would like an even shorter GPA Shortcode (Sharkeez) for texting and tweeting? (hard to say on that one) I think it’ll depend and some will and some won’t, but I would suggest that most businesses pick a really short code (3-4 letters) if they can as an alternative just in case they want it down the road. What do you think about whether Sharkeez would ever want it to be Sharkeez? -Lee

February 19, 2010

I would like to try to encourage the use of the GPA Shortcodes as much as possible, even on a full web page, to get people used to this idea, format and presentation. It’ll be more important on a mobile or other small screen device, in tweets, etc. etc. Providing the flyover also allows them to see what the full name is as well if/when they need to. -Lee

February 19, 2010

b)(Ultimately we’re going to want a simple visual presentation of GPA that is clever, memorable, and trademarkable. Ideally it’ll be something that stands out and is easily recognizable. I was thinking about the square F, square t, etc. and unfortunately the square g is pretty well understood as Google. So we may need a cute square GPA or PERHAPS a square Capital G or something like that as well. Don’t need to worry about it right now, but we’ll clearly want something fairly soon. I could see a square cap. G that incorporated a different color than google MAYBE surviving, but it might be tough.) -Lee

February 19, 2010

Can we try an alternative mark up where we emphasize the GPA Shortcodes instead of the full name. So the bigger presentation above the map would be us.ca.mb.sharkeez. or us>ca>mb>sharkeez or whatever. (we could put GPA: in front of it as well if we need to, and then when you fly over “mb” the pop up is simply the full name “Manhattan Beach” or maybe the pop up also includes a link to more information on Manhattan Beach or some other functionality regarding manhattan beach? ) -Lee

February 19, 2010

On the iphone version I'd probably omit the far right column to use more space for the map, etc. This is not worth a lot of work. Ultimately we'll want to build an iPhoneoptimized site with lots of bells and whistles. However, there are somesituations where it is nice to demo it on a phone. -Lee