Monthly Archives: August 2010

Up close and personal with the team

You know about the GeoGraffiti service.  You know about the magic phone calls, the Voice Marks, the super cool social service… but do you know who makes this possible?  In this post we will take you behind the scenes and get up close and personal with the each one of the magic monkeys that make GeoGraffiti possible.  Enjoy.

Adrian Rodriguez - GeoGraffiti Cofounder and CTO

Monkey 1: Adrian

Q: What music is playing on your computer right now?

A: Tech House.  John Digweed’s Bedrock 11 track 3 (Babylon ft Santos) to be exact… it’s my favorite track… just bloody sick!

Q: In the past week, what is the best dish you have tried and can recommend?

A: Haha.  Hrmmmmm… well I had lunch with my sister yesterday.  We had pupusas, an El Salavadorian dish.  Those things are damn good!  But mannnn are they also bad for you!

Q: Dogs or Cats?

A: Dogs.  I have an English Bulldog named Latte which you will also meet in this article.

Q: Team Edward or Team Jacob?

A: Team Edward

Q: Aside from GeoGraffiti, what do you love to do?

A: 2 things.  Muay Thai and House Steppin (dancing to house music).

Q:  Why is GeoGraffiti cool?

A: Voice baby!  It expresses a hell of a lot more emotion than text can and it’s great for mobile phones.

Q:  Inception the Movie…was he dreaming?

A: Well I can tell you this…I’m the one that was dreaming.  I was so tired from working on GeoGraffiti that I fell asleep during the movie =)

Q:  Do you have a person who inspires your work?

A: There isn’t one particular person.  There are a lot of people who inspire me to do things.  It’s not just people either.  General random things can inspire me.  For example, I’ll be stressed and go take a walk.  During the walk I’ll see some amazing looking object like a beautifully designed car, sign, lamp, etc and that makes me want to keep going.

Q:  Foursquare or Gowalla?

A: I can’t choose.  I use all 3.  3?  Yup!  You forgot Facebook Places.  Foursquare definitely has the users and more activity.  Gowalla def has the best aesthetically pleasing design out of all 3.  Facebook places is cool because every one of your friends has it so it’s a bit more personal.

Q:  What stress busting tip can you share with the readers?

A: Run!  If I get to a point where I can’t concentrate anymore, I will stop and go run sprints and other drills.  Usually the more explosive stuff is better if you want to release endorphins quick.  Endorphins are yummy.  So are KKKOOOOOOOOKKKKIIIIEEEESSSSS!!!

Chad Cook - GeoGraffiti Founder and CEO

Monkey 2: Chad

Q: What music is playing on your computer right now?

A: 3AM by Silicone Soul

Q: In the past week, what is the best dish you have tried and can recommend?

A: home cooked salmon prepared with olive oil, spices, and baked in tin foil wrap.

Q: Dogs or Cats?

A: Dogs.

Q: Team Edward or Team Jacob?

A: Jacob – just sounds cooler

Q: Aside from GeoGraffiti, what do you love to do?

A: lose money in the stock market. shoot, did I just say that?

Q:  Why is GeoGraffiti cool?

A: because i thought of it.

Q:  Inception the Movie…was he dreaming?

A: yes.  he’s still stuck in level 3

Q:  Do you have a person who inspires your work?

A: The thought of what world my children will grow up in continually focuses my ethical goals around ‘work’ and more importantly ‘life’.

Q:  Foursquare or Gowalla?

A: neither…i didn’t think of them :)

Q:  What stress busting tip can you share with the readers?

A: some loud music through a good set of headphones.

Yannell Rodriguez - GeoGraffiti Creative Design Director

Monkey 3: Yannell

Q: What music is playing on your computer right now?

A: Hype Machine:  Titus Andronicus!! :-D

Q: In the past week, what is the best dish you have tried and can recommend?

A: PUPUSASSSSS!!!!! Where have you been all my life?!

Q: Dogs or Cats?

A: Monkeys. :-)

Q: Team Edward or Team Jacob?

A: Ahahahhaha.  That’s just weak…where are the good vampires?  Lestat :-) mmmm… Lestat…

Q: Aside from GeoGraffiti, what do you love to do?

A: DESIGN! DESIGN! DESIGN! Annnd photography!  I’m always on the computer doing something — illustration, touching up a photograph, website changes, posters…AND drawing… love charcoal.

Q:  Why is GeoGraffiti cool?

A: GeoGraffiti is cool because going to end up being a phenomenal tool for marketing – awwwwwhhhh…I can see it now – it’s like GOLD.

Q:  Inception the Movie…was he dreaming?

A: I say he was dreaming…maybe it was Maul’s dream because the totem isn’t his…it’s hers… I don’t know.

Q:  Do you have a person who inspires your work?

A: Yes yes!  The STENBERG BROTHERS – awwwwhhhh the russians are amazing.  Or or Chip Kidd or or of course the wonderful Paula Scher or the innovation from IDEO.

Q:  Foursquare or Gowalla?

A: hehe…Foursquare duuhhhhhh!!

Q:  What stress busting tip can you share with the readers?

A: I would recommend a high dose of caffeine and walking into an art museum.  It’s the best!  It really is.  Just seeing all the visionaries–it feels good to think.

Latte D'Bulldog - GeoGraffiti Head of Security

Monkey 4: Latte D’Bulldog

Q: What music is playing on your computer right now?

A: Wooly Bully!

Q: In the past week, what is the best dish you have tried and can recommend?

A: Yes!  Salmon and Herring Food from Evo.  That or my poppa’s Turkey sandwich.

Q: Dogs or Cats?

A: Dogs of course!  I’m a dog!  I eat cats as snacks.  RUFFFF!

Q: Team Edward or Team Jacob?

A: Team Bulldog.

Q: Aside from GeoGraffiti, what do you love to do?

A: I love to chew on plastic bottles and take naps.

Q:  Why is GeoGraffiti cool?

A: B/C my poppa works on it!  RUFFFFF!

Q:  Inception the Movie…was he dreaming?

A: I’m not allowed in the theatres!  Those jerks.

Q:  Do you have a person who inspires your work?

A: I get inspiration for my head of security position from the US Marines.  I’m their mascot.  HUA!

Q:  Foursquare or Gowalla?

A: I haven’t used either of them because I’ve been too busy biting the people trying to steal our secrets!

Q:  What stress busting tip can you share with the readers?

A: I recommend that you get your poppa’s water bottle and chew the cap off.  It’s a whole lot of fun and you can do it for hours!

New Beautiful, Slick, and Cleaner Site Design

Hello!  We have some very exciting news for you!  We have collected a lot of feedback from our users about our website and are pleased to announce that we have completely redesigned it.  We listened to your suggestions, complaints, and tips, and our mad scientists went to work…

Why Redesign?

  • Aesthetics
    • In short, the old site was just not very pleasing to the eye.  Our users and even us just didn’t have that warm fuzzy feeling when we landed on any of our pages (except for the map page which was redesigned a while back).  We studied the effects of an aesthetically pleasing design from the redesign of our iPhone App during the past year and we knew it was a no-brainer.  Users were simply happier and more willing to use GeoGraffiti if it looked, for lack of a better word, pretty.  We want you to know that we take design very seriously and welcome every suggestion you may have.
  • The Social Web
    • The web as we know it is advancing at an astronomical rate.  Innovative minds across the world have created many great and popular products such as Facebook and Twitter.  Most of our users are active on these social networks so we wanted to provide them with a way to share our site with the world.  All pages on our site now include Share buttons to share to all social media services.  We have also Facebook OpenGraph-enabled every page and Voice Mark on our site.  You know that “Like” button you’ve been seeing on every site across the web that lets you “like” something on Facebook?  Yup… it’s now included on every page AND on every Voice Mark you listen to on our Voice Mark Map Did you just listen to a Voice Mark that you liked and want to share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc?  Simple!
    • You now "Like" stuff on GeoGraffiti

      You now "Like" stuff on GeoGraffiti

      You can play GeoGraffiti Voice Marks within Facebook

      You can play GeoGraffiti Voice Marks within Facebook

      OpenGraph Facebook Sharing of Voice Marks on Facebook

      OpenGraph Facebook Sharing of Voice Marks on Facebook

      "Like" a Voice Mark on Facebook

      "Like" a Voice Mark on Facebook

      Share Voice Marks on Social Networks

      Share Voice Marks on Social Networks

  • Social Experience on our site
    • So we have our Like buttons and Share buttons in place ready for you to click on, but what about OUR site itself?  Users were telling us that they didn’t feel like the landing page was very social and that there wasn’t a way for them to find interesting content upon landing on the site.  We have the beginnings of a more socially interactive site in place now!  From our landing page, you can now observe recent Voice Marks that have been created by users on GeoGraffiti.

      Recent Voice Marks Widget

      Recent Voice Marks Widget

      You can also look at recent users that have joined the GeoGraffiti community.

      Recent Users Widget

      Recent Users Widget

      We have also included Facebook social plugins.  There’s the ever-popular like-box so you can see our Facebook page feed right from our site.  Another more interesting plugin we have enabled is the Facebook recommendations plugin.  This will take into account what your network of friends have shared about GeoGraffiti and make personalized recommendations for you on our page.  We think that is pretty nifty and will really help personalize your GeoGraffiti experience for you.

      Facebook/GeoGraffiti Personalized Recommendations

      Facebook/GeoGraffiti Personalized Recommendations

      We have created a Twitter timeline widget so you can see a few recent mentions of GeoGraffiti on Twitter.  It’s Twitter @Anywhere enabled so you can hover over the user names who mentioned us and view more info on them and/or follow them if you want.

      Twitter Widget

      Twitter Widget

      Follow Twitter Users Directly from GeoGraffiti

      Follow Twitter Users Directly from GeoGraffiti

      You can even search directly from our landing page now!  Look at that slick looking search bubble!  Just type in what you are looking for (e.g. Food) and where you are looking for it (e.g. los angeles, ca).  [HINT:You can type in names of cities, states, zip codes, intersections]

      Search from main page

      Search from main page

      This is just the beginning so we hope you enjoy what we have put together so far.

  • Setting up for exciting new upcoming features
    • We have many new features in the works that we are working hard to complete.  A lot of these do involve social aspects of the site and better serving our users so we HAD come up with a nicer design that will work with these features.  You can be the first to know about these features by signing up for our newsletter here.

In Conclusion

We want to thank our users and friends who provided the suggestions for the redesign.  There is no way we could have done this without your candid feedback.  As always, we want your continued feedback so please let us know what you think at any time by using Contacting Us Here.  Remember to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on our latest and greatest features.  You can sign up for our newsletter here. So, go check out the site already at http://www.voicemark.com/ and let us know what you think.

following us on the social web.