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 can play GeoGraffiti Voice Marks within Facebook

    

    OpenGraph Facebook Sharing of Voice Marks on Facebook

    

    "Like" a Voice Mark on Facebook

    

    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

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

    

    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

    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

    

    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

    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.

Lessons Learned

In short, let the designer do their job!  It’s important for the team to constantly communicate.  However, several website owners, founders, etc have it in their heads that everything should be done their way.  It’s actually quite strange when you think about it, right?  Why the hell did you hire the designer in the first place?!  Well I certainly have learned to give our Creative Director, Yannell, room to do what she thinks is best in terms of anything creative.  When you combine that with the other strengths on the team, something synergistic happens…thoughts and ideas begin flowing at a phenomenal pace and, in my opinion, contributed to our the redesign we are presenting to you today.  Looking back at our original plans, what we produced has waaaayyyy more features and is much prettier than we had envisioned.

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 Contacting Us Here.  Remember to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on our latest and greatest features.  AND, remember that all subscribers are automatically entered into a monthly raffle for a gift card! What’s the best thing about being the monthly raffle winner?  YOU get to pick the gift card you want… well not the amount… =), but you know what we’re saying… you can pick the place you want it from! You can sign up for our newsletter here. So, go check out the site already at http://www.geograffiti.com/ and let us know what you think by contacting us OR by following us on the social web.

design, newsletter, redesign, social media, widgets

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
  • 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.

Follow Us

• Facebook Fan Page
• Twitter
• YouTube

iphone, iPhone App, iphone voice app, ipod touch, twitter, twitter integration, voice 2.0, voice app, Voice Map, Voice Mark, voice tweet

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

• Download Google Earth
• Browse the Google Earth Gallery
• Browse the Google KML Documentation

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

earth, google earth, kml, placemark, placemarks

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

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.

features, GeoGraffiti, tweet, twitter, twitter app, twitter integration, voice 2.0

It’s done…well it is for now. GeoGraffiti’s new Voice Marking map mashup UI. I guess you could say it was a team effort, but really there was only one “man” behind the man who did all the heavy lifting. He was born to code, likes working the vampire schedule, but can occasionally ignore public guidance.

No seriously check out the new UI and features at www.geograffiti.com/map

Some of the most notable new features are:

• Search – We have enabled our Voice Map @ www.geograffiti.com/map with content search.  When a new Voice Mark is published, its title, tags, address information, and category will become searchable within within a few hours.  What does this mean for you?  It’s now easier than ever to find Voice Marks.  You can type in what you are looking for in the WHAT box and, optionally, constrain the search to a specific location by typing the location into the WHERE box.  The better part of this search comes into play within a few days (it could be as short as one day or as long as three).  That is, we index your Voice Mark audio content and it becomes searchable so you are able to search for Voice Marks where a person mentions, for example, “parking” in “Los Angeles,CA” and all Voice Marks related to parking will show up.  It’s not perfect, but it is WAY better than what we had before (nothing) :). 
  
• Social features – You now have the ability to view who your fans are, who you are a fan of, and view user profiles.  This can be done by clicking on the “My Account” tab on our Voice Map.  To view user profiles, you can click on a Voice Mark’s creator link or search for users by clicking on the “Search Users” link on the top right-hand side of the Voice Map page.  You can also upload a profile picture to associate with your profile by clicking on My Account.  We have also enabled a rough version of groups support.  We are still actively working on this feature so any input on what you want “groups” to do will be greatly appreciated.
• Notifications – This feature will allow you to keep up-to-date with the latest buzz.  You can now enable notifications for “users responding to your Voice Marks” and “users becoming your fan”.  To do this, you simply click on the My Account tab and then proceed to the Notifications section.  You can enable two types of notifications:  Email and SMS Text Message.  In order to have a text message sent out to you, make sure you select your Carrier in the My Phones section.  You will now be notified when someone responds to your Voice Mark (good for Voice Marks about help, advice, dating) and when someone becomes your fan.  Some of our users will be happy about the response notifications because they want to use GeoGraffiti Voice Marks to “hook up”.  Hook up?  It seems like plenty of users want to post a Voice Mark that functions like a personal ad (…looking for woman in …. that likes dogs…).  If someone is interested, they can reply and the user will be notified and the two users can take it from there.  Pretty cool, eh?
• A “prettier” look – You may have noticed that our Voice Map and home page have been redesigned.  We wanted to provide you with a better user experience so we redesigned everything… our company logo, the voice map page, color scheme… One of the best parts of the new Voice Map is the resizable map.  That has been a complaint from users from day one.  People with huge monitors or high resolutions were not able to see a bigger map.  This is all taken care of now.  The Voice Map will now stretch to accommodate your entire screen.  If you have any comments or suggestions about the redesigned look, email us using the Contact Page.
• Social Sharing – Every Voice Mark now includes a [better] Sharing feature.  You can retrieve the direct link (just like before), send to a friend’s phone, or share via Email,AIM,etc (provided by AddThis).  Our Send2Phone feature allows you to send a Voice Mark to your friends via telephone.  You type in their number and click Send.  Your friend will get a phone call (your number as the caller ID) and GeoGraffiti will say “GeoGraffiti will now play that Voice Mark that was sent to your by your friend” and then play the Voice Mark on their phone.  There is one catch though… YOU MUST be signed in and have a verified phone number.  This is to comply with the law and to prevent anyone from sending out Voice Marks as spam to annoy other users (remember YOUR phone number will appear as the caller ID on the other person’s phone).  The other sharing feature is provided by AddThis.  This will allow you to share a Voice Mark via Email, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and a whole lot of other services you currently use.  To try this out, just click on the “Share via Email” link on any Voice Mark on our Voice Map.

• Better URLs – Aside from this being a no-brainer must-have feature, this was inspired by a friend of mine that left a Voice Mark from his iPhone for a waitress at a restaurant.  But how would that waitress listen to the Voice Mark?  Prior to this release, you’d have to link to a Voice Mark like this http://www.geograffiti.com/gu/SearchMap.html?vmid=1. YUK!  That won’t help my friend at all because the link doesn’t even fit on a napkin!  Instead, you can now link to our Voice Marks like this:http://www.geograffiti.com/X or http://www.geograffiti.com/voicemarks/X where X is the Voice Mark’s ID.  For example,   http://www.geograffiti.com/2708 or http://www.geograffiti.com/voicemarks/3114What’s the difference?  Not much.  We provide the former style for scenarios like “I want to leave a Voice Mark for a guy or girl at a bar”  The latter style is what you should use when linking from a blog, website, etc.

GeoGraffiti is platform to publish a voice message and geotag the message to a location.  It is not a private voice mail service.  Rather, every Voice Mark message is made available to the public and accessible from anybody’s mobile phone (although the GeoGraffiti iPhone3G and G1 apps make geotagging easiest).  Everybody has local knowledge, opinions, advice and warnings that the rest of us can benefit from. It’s wisdom of crowds intelligence.

GeoGraffiti offers a public voice information exchange that all generations (Gen-Y to Boomers) can relate to and use because it just requires phone, an opinion and a voice message.  Our voice2.0 map mashup website interface is most convenient for setting notification preferences, joining social groups around a topic, and searching or filtering for specific content.  The phone interface (either from an iPhone, Android G1, or direct call to GeoGraffiti at (213) 221-3802) is available when you are mobile on location.  Why voice?  It’s expressive, personable and authentic.  We have nothing against text messaging and are exploring the idea of partnering with a text messaging platform, but our focus and goal is organizing location-specific voice content.

To hear a little more about the idea and use cases for GeoGraffiti, view a TechZulu interview with Chad taken right after our launch a while back.  Note:  Chad drank enough gin & tonics that our gin bottle was 3/4 empty :) … but somehow still managed to finish the interview.

– Adrian & Chad

geograffiti 2.0, geotagged audio, google maps mashup, local search, voice 2.0, Voice Map, Voice Mark, Voice Marks, voice mashup