The Click2Map™ Blog

After adding walking directions a few weeks ago, Google Maps is now bringing a simplified layout to its Maps. The announcement starts by 3 words that could be Google’s motto: “less is more”. Basically, the map displayed is a little bigger, and the search box stands on top of the map. This means less cluster, more room, and a friendlier way to surf maps in general.

While Google Maps’ main challenge is to bring the whole wide world to the world wide Web, the challenge for RIA built on top of Google Maps is to the right ergonomy to squeeze in additional information: listings, marker descriptions, geographic information… As Frederic Lardinois from RWW mentions, “now that the tabs are gone, there is a stronger focus on the search form“. Good point. I guess that once again, even for online maps, search is going to be the dominant behavior to find geographic information (instead of listings or marker designs for example). At least this makes sense in a Google world.

xavierv

This week, we just released our new version of the service. The announcement was made public on Monday.

To illustrate a bit how it works, I have created a map of the places to go out in San Francisco, and made a short and punchy 1′30 video demo of how I created this map.

Grab this map:
<iframe id=”c2m_map_widget” src=”http://www.click2map.com/maps/xavierv/GoOutSF/widget” width=”460″ height=”400″ frameborder=”0″></iframe>

The first exciting new feature is to show/hide tool for groups of markers on a map. As you can see on my map, I can single out places “serving food” by hiding “bars open late night” and “clubs”. This tool can be very useful to show markers by price range, type of businesses, open hours, and so on.

In addition to this, the user can get driving directions right there on the map. How convenient to plan your night out!

Finally, I kept the sweetest fruit for dessert: Batch operation on multiple markers:

This new productivity tool lets you perform operations on multiple markers with unique ease. Bulk operations allow you to update the content of several markers in a single operation! You can thus change or delete their description, the links they contain, the keywords they hold and even their icon! It’s also possible to add tabs to each marker (text, photo or Html) or to remove existing ones. You can also move or duplicate markers across existing groups and maps and geocode them from their street address. The Platinum version also makes it possible to apply a template to several markers at the same time.

Those are great milestones that have been achieved here at Click2Map. However, we’re not done yet: A map widget is under stealth development. Click2Map already offers an embed code to insert your maps in any post, but we are working on making a super good looking one that will integrate new features, and that will look much better on any given Web page, ergonomically speaking.

Article on Google Maps Mania: Two Ways to Build Google Maps Mash-Ups
Article on HyveUp: New Features on Click2Map - Screencast Demo

Xavierv

We’re proud to announce the release of the brand new 1.7 version of Click2Map.

Among other things, published maps now allow you and your visitors to display or hide groups of markers and to choose the “terrain” display mode.

Silver, Gold and Platinum Click2Map subscriptions moreover allow you to display itineraries on published maps. These Click2Map versions have now become even more professional with the addition of a unique productivity tool allowing you to update multiple markers at once.

Be sure not to miss any of these new features! The free 30-day Trial of Click2Map is the perfect solution to discover all the possibilities available in the most advanced Click2Map versions!

Expect another release before the end of the summer: we’re working on a brand new widget that will satisfy even the most demanding users!

Display/hide markers on published maps
All the markers present in a group can easily be displayed or hidden by simply checking or not a checkbox.Clicking on the folder representing a group displays or hides the list of its contained markers.Clicking on the panel arrow (circled in red) allows you to completely hide the marker list.

Terrain mode
This new display mode is now available both in the Click2Map editor and on all generated maps.

Directions (Silver, Gold and Platinum Click2Map versions)
A new tab labeled “Directions” can now be displayed on published maps. It offers a quick way to calculate itineraries between markers or addresses. You can choose not to display this tab in the map publication dialog box.

Batch operations on multiple markers (Silver, Gold and Platinum Click2Map versions)
This new productivity tool lets you perform operations on multiple markers with unique ease. Bulk operations allow you to update the content of several markers in a single operation! You can thus change or delete their description, the links they contain, the keywords they hold and even their icon! It’s also possible to add tabs to each marker (text, photo or Html) or to remove existing ones. You can also move or duplicate markers across existing groups and maps and geocode them from their street address. The Platinum version also makes it possible to apply a template to several markers at the same time.

Feel free to send us any feedback at support (at) click2map.com!

Antony

Antony Zanetti, co-founder and CTO of Click2Map has been interviewed by Xavier Vespa, the owner of the Hyve Up Blog.

HyveUp produces short video-interviews of Founders/Officers of Web 2.0 startups.

Their goal is to create a video-directory of Web 2.0 startups.

In the last weeks, since we announced the major 1.5 release, hundreds of users reached the Click2Map community. For them and the thousands of Click2Map users, we’re very happy to add new features and tools to Click2Map.

Map duplication
You can now duplicate a map with all groups and markers. You just have to select the map in the Editor, right click and select the contextual menu “Duplicate Map…”. All the map settings like Center Address, Zoom Level, Default Marker Info or Template are also duplicated in the new map. 

Help system & FAQ
Click2Map is a Rich Internet Application (RIA). That means a lot of features and parameters that allows you to custom Maps creation and publication. Each Dialog Box contains now a Help button with a link to the appropriate Help section. Also, the new FAQ provides you answers to the more frequent asked questions

.

It’s now possible to try all Click2Map features, for free and for 30 days.

Everyone now can test the advanced features like the import and export tools, the marker template, and the My Database module. You can check out the various tutorials on the wiki to get started.

You can also get statistics on your maps from your “My Account” page. You’ll find useful information about visits, visitors and the number of clicks on your markers.

Note that after 30 days, your account will automatically be changed to the free bronze plan. You can also upgrade anytime to Silver, Gold or Platinum plan.

We hope you will enjoy trying Click2Map!

We’re proud to announce the release of Click2Map 1.5! Version 1.5 constitutes a major update and many long awaited features are now available:

• Marker templates help you optimize the marker creation process by allowing you to globally define what your markers should look like, what kind of information they should include and how it should be presented. You can, of course, define as many different templates as you need.
• The new My Database module allows you to define your own data categories and personal data fields. My Database is a huge helper if you ever need to create multiple markers that share common properties.
• Variables are now more powerful than ever! In addition to Click2Map’s default internal variables, you can now automatically insert information from your database wherever you need it: variables can be used in almost all text fields available both for individual markers and for marker templates.
• The updated import/export module provides even more accurate results in less time and better feedback on the geocoding operations as well as efficient error handling and real-time information.
• Statistics provide feedback about your maps’ consultations by letting you know how many visitors clicked on your maps and which markers are the most popular.

We have created a screencast to show you what is coming in the next Click2Map release!

This new upcoming version includes the following new features:

• Use your own marker icons
• Reorder groups or markers in the list
• Use default icon for your groups
• Drag and drop markers from a map or group to another map or group
• Duplicate markers
• Built-in search engine
• In photo tab: upload a file from your disk or use a specific URL

Like you will see in the video, we have also redesigned all the application icons (toolbar, menus, …).

We are hoping to release this new version as soon as possible! Stay tuned!

See the video screencast now!

We are going to present Click2Map at the TechCrunch20 Conference on September 18th in San Francisco.

If you are going to the conference, don’t hesitate to visit us at the DemoPit!

I’ve been interviewed by Thierry Bezier from the web tv intruders.tv during The Next Web Conference at Amsterdam in June.

The interview is in french

Watch the video.

Antony