Archive for August, 2010

Hello FortiusOne!

Posted in Geo, Personal on August 10th, 2010 by andrei – 2 Comments

It is true, I’ve joined Fortiusone and am thrilled about it! I will be heading the visualization side of the GeoIQ platform, working alongside some of the smartest people in geo. If you have ever met anyone from the company or seen any of their projects, you will no doubt share my excitement.

FortiusOne combines a disruptive technology with a strong business model, making it one of the most interesting companies in the geo space. I feel as though the dynamic work environment, talented team and challenging projects will provide the perfect environment for my personal growth. Also, the opportunity to build on my experience with UMapper is something I just could not pass up.

Check out the official announcement on FortiusOne’s blog.

Vkontakte Adds Places

Posted in Geo, Mobile, Russia, Vkontakte on August 4th, 2010 by andrei – Be the first to comment

Russia’s biggest social network Vkontakte (translated “In Contact”) added check-in capabilities to its mobile clients. The new “Places” feature makes it easy to discover trendy places, see where your friends are and append location to your status updates. The core functionality is very similar to Foursquare and Gowalla. Once checked in, your location is appended to all status updates and your friends know where you are.

I wasn’t able to test the application live since Vkontakte does not have a Places database for the US. As of right now, only Russia and Ukraine are supported. Here are some screenshots:

The release announcement is here, log-in required.

Vkontakte is often claimed to be a Facebook clone for its similar design, functionality and business model. It is indeed very similar, and therefore it is interesting to see Vkontakte release the location feature before Facebook. I wonder if Facebook’s recent investor and Vkontakte’s board member Yuri Milner had to do anything with this.

Yandex Joins in on the Fire Tracking

Posted in Geo, Maps, Russia, Yandex on August 2nd, 2010 by andrei – 2 Comments

On the heels of GeoMixer, Yandex rolls out its own version of a fire-tracking application. In addition to the fire location data, which is the same in both applications, Yandex has added a ton of user-generated content including photos, videos, tweets and blog posts. The images coming from the affected areas are truly stunning and add a whole new meaning to the map.

Photo: Юрий Мельников