July 20, 2013

Faster Local Communication ... with awesome maps: GeoCha uses MapBox now!

Speed is crucial for mobile local communication systems

Local mobile communication systems like GeoCha need to be fast. There are many ways to improve the speed of webapps, e.g. optimizing css & image sprites, javascript refactoring, well choosen external services and scalable hosting architecture and many more.
As maps are one of our most important user interface elements we kept constantly looking for the best provider...

GeoCha maps switched from Google Maps to MapBox.com

We finally decided to switch to mapbox. Since the load times of geocha app improved a lot. Besides the default styling of mapbox maps looks awesome and we now are preparing special styles for a couple of our geocha group - apps.

Google Maps drawbacks:
- Classic and boring look and feelfile://localhost/var/folders/xf/rq_fq7s16358qw6nm3xrbfrr0000gn/T/com.skitch.skitch/Screenshot_GeoCha_-_MapBox_16_54.jpg
- Vague clearing and settlement system
- Google API is unnecessarily complex

MapBox is awesome and soon will have vector only maps which would boost our webapps loading times again.

July 18, 2013

Take your business beyond social networking ... join it with your neighborhood via "GeoCha for XING".

Your Professional and Social Opportunity in Next-Gen Local Business Networks.

PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL NETWORKS - The price of social networking.

Social Networking comes at a cost ... it takes time. 
And time - so i heard - is becoming more and more precious!
We are swamped with crazy amounts of obligations. A lot of them come from our social connections we have collected through the years and are dominating our ways on how we communicate.

BIG BUSINESS - When "social first" is worth it.

When doing big business it is truly worth establishing profound and deep social connections. The higher the stakes the bigger our urge to know that the person across the table has integrity and has the best in mind for all the participants.

But there are many small, urgent, local things our work confronts us with ...

BUSINESS's MANY SMALL THINGS - When local is quicker, faster and more helpful. 

Have you ever looked for quick and close local help with a small but important task you needed to accomplish? No? Probably you haven't had a fitting place to ask for it :-) 

So let us think about the following situations:
- The logo and headling design of your presentation slides need an urgent fix ...
- Your computer doesn't boot anymore ...
- Hammer and nails to fix up a broken shelf ...
- You are looking for a nice restaurant with WIFI to prepare before a meeting with colleagues ...
- Need a DIN A3 print of a plan after shops are closed ...
- Nice professional photos of an exclusive product for you blog ...
- Some brains on choosing the best close XYZ ...

Sometimes you can do things like that yourself by searching the internet for hours. But you could have spend your time more wisely by just asking your immediate neighborhood.
Probably there's someone around you don't know (yet) with just the right set of skills you are looking for.

STAY UP-TO-DATE ABOUT BUSINESS ACTIVITIES IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.


"GeoCha for XING" is a mobile webapp which extends the XING Professional Network by connecting its members and groups by their location - first.

All it's features are meant to open up the business potential of your neighborhood and provide a platform for people to help out each other in a quick, efficient way ... 

See you around in GeoCha .................. literally :-)

July 15, 2013

GeoCha - Release Notes 2013-07-15 : Maps can now have interactive information channels that never expire!


As of today your event-based local blogging platform "GeoCha" received a couple of updates and enhancements.

Among the many small fixes and stability improvements, all members can now pin information at a location on their map that never expire. This feature is called "permanent channels" and can be used to have interactive content channels for things like buildings and permanent locations and alike ... 


Release Notes 2013-07-15: 

- Possibility to create permanent channels within all maps. ( Except the global public map. )
- Simple clean layout to create channels.
- Several bug fixes.

GeoCha.com : See you around ....................... literally :-)