Category Archives: New Features

New Beautiful, Slick, and Cleaner Site Design

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on August 11, 2010 1 comments

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.

New Voice Mark App by GeoGraffiti For iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on January 13, 2010 1 comments

The brand new Voice Mark App is now available on the iTunes App Store! It was previously called GeoGraffiti, but we have since  rebranded it to Voice Mark by GeoGraffiti. It has been a roller coaster ride building this new app for our users because we decided to rebuild it from scratch.  Why did we do this?  We spent many months collecting feedback from users and friends about what the new Voice Mark App should be able to do.  We ended up with a huge list of features that, after careful analysis, indicated that users basically wanted ALL the functionality of the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark Map within the iPhone App.  We were able to build most of the functionality in for this initial 3.0 release.  The features we were not able to complete will be coming to our users in the 3.1 version which is a very short time away from release.

One of the biggest complaints from users and friends was the App’s design.  It just wasn’t “sexy” or “pretty” enough.  How were we going to solve that problem?  Simple!  We decided to hire a very talented summer intern, Yannell Rodriguez, who would lead the graphic design of the new app.  As you will see in the video and screenshots, she did a fantastic job!

So let’s get right to it and start you off with a nice demo video that was produced by our friends at Scraster who also published a nice blog post about the new Voice Mark App.

Get the App Now

Key New Features

  • Google Maps Mashup Interface
    • You can now create and browse Voice Marks using the familiar Google Maps interface.
  • Facebook Connect Single Signon
    • To customize their accounts, users can now sign in to the Voice Mark App by using their Facebook account.  This eliminates the need to remember yet another username and password.
  • Twitter Account Linking for Voice Tweets (tweaking in Sept)
    • Link your Twitter account and now every Voice Mark you publish will automatically update your Twitter status with a link to your Voice Mark that your followers can listen to.  It’s essentially a Voice Tweet!
  • Email and SMS Notifications
    • You can configure your account to notify you when you have a new Fan/Follower and when someone responds to your Voice Marks.
  • Social Sharing and Bookmarking powered by AddThis
    • Sharing Voice Marks has never been easier!  Clicking the “Bookmark and Share” button for a Voice Mark will let you share the Voice Mark using hundreds of social sharing services such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Delicious, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Yahoo Buzz.  You can also forward Voice Marks to your contacts in your address book via email.
  • Create Voice Marks by inbound telephone call or iPhone Microphone
    • Voice Marks can be easily and quicklly created using a standard inbound telephone call (we call you and your phone acts as the microphone).  You can also create Voice Marks using your iPhones built-in microphone in situations where you want to capture something immediately (e.g. breaking news) and can’t wait for a phone call or when the phone lines are busy (e.g. New Year’s Eve).
  • Customizable User Profile
    • Create a user profile with a profile pic and other information such as User Name, Birthday, and Location.
  • GeoTag Voice Marks to any location
    • You have the option of using the iPhone’s GPS to GeoTag your Voice Mark to the exact spot you are standing at or to a remote location that you designate via Search/Google Maps.
  • Search for Voice Marks in any location
    • You have the option of searching for Voice Marks around you using the iPhone’s GPS or Voice Marks in a different location via Search/Google Maps.

Before & After

Old Version 1 & 2:

All New Version 3:


To view more info and screenshots of the new app, visit the product page

What Users are Saying

“The new app is so much sexier!” — EJ Liao

“Voice Marks are truly powerful” — Cordell Kennedy

“Extremely handy & innovative app.  Very user friendly.” — Karina Amezaga

“A quick and easy way to share info on locations I’ve been to” — Ben Graham

“I updated and wow the entire interface is different! Not bad.” — Eva Cheung

“I love hearing real people talking about their favorite restaurants and bars.  They give me a better idea of what a place is all about” — Luis Sotomayor

“Great way to share without typing!” — TJ Thinakaran

“An awesome informative app when on the go and need to know!!!” — RC Villareal

“I love the new design and add ons to this update.  The whole voice networking concept is definitely a great tool for tourists and education.  I like how this app has the yelp-fiend effect except through voice reviews.” — Gisselli

“I love being able to hear the genuine emotion in people’s voices … something I can’t get through reading reviews on my phone.” — Stephanie Kim

So there you have it folks … our brand new Voice Mark app!  We’ve enjoyed building this and look forward to improving it in the coming months.  Please let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions for improvement.  We’d like to thank all our beta testers for the time they spent testing the app and offering suggestions.  We couldn’t have done it without you!  Thank You.

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GeoGraffiti Voice Marks on Google Earth

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on May 20, 2009 None comments

This is the 2nd article of a three part series. This one covers how GeoGraffiti Voice Marks can be seen on Google Earth.  If you haven’t read the previous article, read it here:   GeoGraffiti now has Twitter Integration.  

This Google Earth Integration is mostly for your enjoyment.  Whether you are new to Google Earth or a current user, you will have the pleasure of being able to hear the latest and greatest Voice Marks directly on your Google Earth :).  While not all the functionality of the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark Map is available, you will get the most important function — listening to the audio.  The Voice Marks have permalinks to the Voice Mark on the GeoGraffiti website in case you want to reply, create your own Voice Marks, etc.  

Video Demo

Links

Limitations

  • Most content is in the United States.  Why?  Well… phone calls are horrendously expensive in other countries :)… but we have some alternatives.  We just need to find the time to implement it.
  • Not all functionality of GeoGraffiti is available on Google Earth.  This isn’t that big of a deal.  You can listen to the Voice Marks and if you’re interested in more, there is a link to the GeoGraffiti Voice Mark Map in the balloon.

Please let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions!  

Cheers,

- Adrian, Chad, and Latte

GeoGraffiti now has Twitter Integration

Posted by Adrian Rodriguez on May 14, 2009 1 comments

We’ve been incredibly busy during the past couple of months with a big GEO SEO project.  We can’t describe everything about it in one post so we decided to talk about a new feature every day for the rest of this week.

Our first feature we’d like to show is our brand new Twitter Integration.  The feature is really simple.  All you do is enable Twitter Integration on your GeoGraffiti account and any Voice Mark you create will result in a Tweet to your Twitter account.  So what appears as your status on Twitter when you create a new Voice Mark?  Here’s a screenshot of my recent Twitter updates.

Status message from GeoGraffiti/Twitter integration

Status message from GeoGraffiti/Twitter integration

Your new Voice Marks will update your Twitter status with a message similar to what you see in the screenshot.  So why not put the text transcribed Voice Mark as your Twitter status message?  Well… it’s just hard :).  We can’t possibly transcribe audio real-time in order to update your Twitter status.  This process still requires some human aspect to it so there’s just no way…right now…but soon!  So, you’ll get your nifty Voice Mark title along with a direct link to the Voice Mark where users can listen to the audio.

So why is this cool?  

There are many reasons, but I’ll list a few below

  • Just because you are away from your computer doesn’t mean you have to stop Tweeting!  With any regular phone, anyone can call the GeoGraffiti TUI (Telephone User Interface) @ 213.221.3802 to leave a Voice Mark.  As long as you’ve created a GeoGraffiti account and enabled Twitter Integration, all your Voice Marks will be posted as Tweets!  You’ll run into situations where Tweeting is actually cumbersome or somewhat limiting (not because Twitter is bad, but because Twitter may not be the right medium).  Imagine you’re out and you find some interesting museum or hole-in-the-wall restaurant that you love.  If you want to talk about the places in detail, writing a review via text on a mobile phone will just take too long and you only have the 140 character limit.  Instead, just use GeoGraffiti and get on with your life :).  It’ll take a about a minute.  Plus, your Voice Mark will be there for the rest of the public to benefit from.
  • It doesn’t matter how you create the Voice Mark… your Twitter status will always be updated.  There is no need for any fancy equipment!  Remember that GeoGraffiti is a platform and all our our end-user interfaces are simply interfaces.  All the magic happens on our servers.  This means that you can use GeoGraffiti on iPhone or TMobile G1 to create a Voice Mark and your Twitter status will be updated.  Your tech-challenged grandparents can use their plain ol’ mobile phone or land-line and their Twitter status will be updated (of course they might need your help setting up a Twitter account for the first time)… they might not even go on Twitter at all…all their tweets can be Voice Marks :).  
  • People are apparently making money from Tweets…???  That’s what I saw on the news a few days ago.  Well… if that’s the case, then they too can keep earning $$ by leaving Voice Marks!  
  • Our not-very-publicized Biz Marks (Business Voice Marks for free advertising) will benefit from this by using Twitter as a medium to spread the message.  Basically anyone interested in using GeoGraffiti for SEO/GeoSEO purposes will definitely want to enable Twitter Integration.  I’ll write about this in more detail in a blog post later this week dealing with SEO/GeoSEO.

So there you have it.  These are just a few ways to use Twitter Integration.  I’m sure you, the user, will come up with more and have better ideas.  Don’t be shy!  Let us know what features you’d like to see and we’ll crank it out :).  

Ok.  Enough out of me… here’s a short video to demonstrate how to enable Twitter Integration.