SOMEWHAT FRANK

GeoEye Office Visit & Tour Video

GeoEye Office Space Adventure from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

GeoEye, is a satellite imagery company that has been in the news quite a bit lately, as they launched GeoEye-1 on September 6, 2008 via a rocket into space. GeoEye-1 is the first commercial satellite offering high resolution imagery. GeoEye-1 is also the exclusive provider of imagery for Google Earth and Google Maps.

I recently got a chance to visit the GeoEye headquarters in Dulles/Sterling, Virginia to speak with Mark Brender, VP of Communications and Marketing at GeoEye. He showed me around the office as we discussed their recent successes and future objectives. This is episode 55 on SOMEWHAT FRANK in HD adventures in a personal technology lifestyle, this time looking down from space thru GeoEye.

Video: Dash Express Web Connected GPS

The days of fumbling over a map while driving a car appear to be a parting memory as GPS systems have grown increasingly popular of the past few years. The iPhone and other mobile devices have adopted GPS for navigating your way through life. Some newer vehicles are adding GPS as a standard option. Portable GPS devices by Garmin, Tom Tom and other have continued to roll out improved devices. But there is a new GPS startup that is taking what Garmin and Tom Tom have been doing well and taking it a step further. 

Dash Navigation, a Sunnyvale, California startup, has launched a product called the Dash Express which not only helps you find your way it also hooks to the Internet for real-time interactivity. This connectivity can be leveraged to offer real-time traffic data based on anomous Dash users. The connection also hooks users up to Yahoo Local search to find local business and other destinations. A new open platform also means that users will be seeing more and functionality and applications offered but some of the notables currently include Twitter which sends your current location to Twitter as well as other applications like WeatherBug which offers real-time weather information based on your current location.

Brightkite Impressive Mobile Social Network

Mobile social networks have come a long way since Google acquired Dodgeball back in 2005 as both mobile devices and online product offerings have improved. Twitter and other mobile enabled lifestreaming and communication products have taken off as users have grown more accustom to text messaging. That said, I finally got around to give, the Colorado-based startup Brightkite a try and was impressed by it.

Sungevity: Solar Power Made Easy

Looking to do something to help the environment on Earth Day? Why not try adding solar panels to your home? Sungevity, a Berkeley-based startup, is looking to help make the process of adding solar powered panels to your home as easy as putting in your address and identifying your home on a map.

Livecontacts Free GPS Buddyfinder Launches

With the popularity of text messaging and the rise of Twitter via mobile there is a growing trend for find me/follow me mobile applications. FindWhere, a Sterling, Virginia based company, has just launched an application called Livecontacts to help you find and keep track of your buddies. Users can now share their location and track their friends’ locations for free. Livecontacts is taking the same approach that craigslist took to democratize the online classified advertising space by offering users what is traditionally a paid geographic data service for free.

Twitter Accounts For Sale, Google App Engine Launches, Business Development 2.0, PageFlakes In Trouble? & Online Rep Tracking

Photo of the Week: With tax day looming on April 15th, I spent many hours this past week & weekend going through and organizing paperwork just like the photo above taken by Camilo Rueda López which resulted in less time to blog.

SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits: 4.13.2008

Video: What's Up Next For BricaBox?

Brica Brica What? BricaBox, the social content platform which I covered previously here and here, that launched a few weeks ago offers users the ability to display structured content with social features. After many attempts I finally got a chance to sit down with BricaBox founder and CEO Nate Westheimer while attending FOWA Miami 2008 which is the latest SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode. You can subscribe by visiting SOMEWHAT FRANK TV.

BricaBox Social Content Platform Launches

BricaBox, the NY-based structured content platform I previously reviewed, publicly launched today to enable anyone to create access and create these rich content experiences with ease. Funded sole by its founders BricaBox has been refered to a "wiki" on steroids (don't tell MLB or Congress) or "WordPress for structured content" as it offers a way for publishers tools to better display listings and such. It should also be noted that BricaBox offers social capabilities to enable community and sharing features which are sometimes confused with those of Ning or other social networking platform options.

AOL Partners With IAC's CitySearch

AOL has announced a strategic content and advertising partnership with CitySearch an IAC owned company. The agreement enables AOL CityGuide, AOL Local Search and MapQuest to leverage CitySearch's local content and in return CitySearch gains access to AOL's distribution. CitySearch CEO, Jay Herratti had this to say:

"This partnership is a classic ‘win-win’ for both companies; Citysearch’s content is great for AOL’s audience, AOL’s reach is great for Citysearch’s advertisers who will gain access to qualified local customers and the ability to deliver a consistent message across the web, and both companies will benefit from incremental revenue."

Sounds like a simple enough deal to me. AOL will help get more ad units in front of Citysearch users and CitySearch will provide its local city reviews and information to AOL - makes sense.

ParkingHunter Helps You Find Monthly Parking

Finding a place to park your sweet ride everyday near your home or work can sometimes be tough, especially in larger cities where there is less real estate in the first place. Most condos and homes have parking included but some do not and that is when your hunt for parking begins. ParkingHunter, a Toronto-based startup, looks to help by aggregating available parking spot listings into one search-able place. The goal is to connect car-less home owners that have empty driveways, with motorists who want affordable parking.

Google Maps Twitter Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday! Did you get the load of election action you were looking for? If not, you might still be able to catch some thanks in part to a map mashup that TechCrunch reported Google teamed up with Twitter to provide. The Google Maps Twitter mashup is similar to Twittervision but for political related twits (a twit is a Twitter message) so you can track the today's Super Tuesday elections on real-time on a map. Acquisition next?

Viacom Flux, Cheap Facebook App Building, Yahoo Launches Mash, Propeller the New Netscape, Facebooking Your Brand & Blogger Corporate Value

Photo of the Week: This illustration titled cubs by greasy chicken face is my attempt to will my favorite baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, into the playoffs. I know it's not very web/tech related but its the Cubbies, it is mid-September and they are still leading the National League Central pack.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 09.16.2007

GrubHub Food Delivery Search Expanding

Even with a drawer full of take-out menus finding places to order food can sometimes be a tough task. GrubHub.com, a Chicago-based food delivery and menu startup developed by Mike Evans and Matt Maloney, looks to help you find a place to order food and has been making some moves to improve.  Placing over $1M in delivery orders per month in Chicago and have now focused their efforts on expansion.

The site enables users to enter an address and then GrubHub returns restaurants that deliver to that address. GrubHub displays a menu, reviews, and coupons for a restaurant. Users can register and place a food order online.

StreetAdvisor A Street Level Local Guide

StreetAdvisor, an Australia-based startup, publicly launch a few months ago to provide an online real estate community powered by crowd-sourced reviews, photos, and videos. Brothers Adam and Jason Spencer wanted to create a site that provided a good amount of information of what it is like to live on any particular street in the world. With a fresh Ajax interface that leverages an almost wiki-like approach StreetAdvisor makes it easy to contribute content about any street.

In searching for a specific street users can find out a street score and rating for a specific location for the mapped location. Users can join a street and receive email updates as additional information, ratings and reviews become available or just snag the provided RSS feed. Users can learn and contribute details about where they live including noise levels, traffic, neighbors, entertainment, public services and more.

Today StreetAdvisor launched some additional features which should further help the site become an a valuable resource for community information reported from the people on the streets.

First off, StreetAdvisor's Local Experts Program offers incentives for users that contribute solid content StreetAdvisors. Real estate agents and other service providers might be able to leverage the program to further bolster their reputation as solid local resources. Users can gain "Street Cred" the currency of the site which could turn into prizes.

Secondly, based on feedback from its users StreetAdvisor has expanded its platform to take on not only street reviews but also  content for cities, states, and countries. Thirdly, StreetAdvisor now also features upgraded guidebooks that now include four broader categories. Guidebooks also feature full version history, similar to Wiki's, thus enabling the ability to see changes and revert to any previous entries.

Finally, StreetAdvisor now offers the ability to secure exclusive "run-of-street" advertising opportunities on a per city basis which I think of as "Virtual Billboards." Targeting real estate agents and mortgage brokers, local service providers, city/local bloggers and media looking to generate leads in a specific city, StreetAdvisor Billboards could prove to be a great way to reach a local audience.

Bottom-line: StreetAdvisor leverages a wiki-like contributor interface to intake street level community information that could prove to be an valuable resource to real estate companies and web sites that look to offer their visitors community related information.

 

Poly9 Offers 3D FreeEarth

Poly9, a group of devolopers based in Quebec City, recenty launched a web-based 3D Earth product called FreeEarth that requires no download. Free is pretty slick and I would love to see FreeEarth as an embeddable widget!

A Flash-based application, FreeEarth, offers an open API that can be leveraged to create some interesting mashups. If you a twitter fan check out twittervision3D. If you show Flickr love then you might want to check out flickrvision.