New Search Box: Find, filter, go nuts!
We’ve updated our search box to be multifunctioned now. It can still find the nearest location if you type in an address or zip code, but additionally it can now help you filter your map data.
Just start typing into the search box to see suggestions on potential searches and filters. To execute a search, select an item on the the list by either using your mouse, or the arrow keys on your keyboard (if you use your keyboard you will need to hit “Enter” after selecting an item.)
The map will update to include only those results that match your search, and it will zoom closer to the location of them. To zoom in closer you can just keep hitting “Enter” until you are all the way in.
We think this is an incredibly powerful feature for folks looking for new ways to filter and search their data, but let us know what you think by posting below.
Analyze different groups of location data with pie charts
We’ve added a new feature that’s automatically turned on when mapping large sets of locations, pie chart clusters. These graphics make it easy to spot trends and hot spots in a quick glance. The pie charts are created and sized automatically based on the number of markers in a given area, the more markers, the larger the pie chart.
View Map of Top 100 Websites Worldwide in a full screen map
Additionally clicking on the legend will cause the map to filter results down to just the selected group, updating the pie charts dynamically. To enable pie charts on your map, just select a group column and turn on the clustering feature (both under advanced options.) Please let us know your feedback on this new feature by posting comments below.
Maptive: Speed, Spreadsheet Editor, Proximity Search & More
Maptive, the commercial version of Batchgeo, continues with speed improvements to handle larger datasets and rendering of markers (server side clustering) and the launch of our new Spreadsheet Editor – embedded within the admin page of each Maptive map.
More information below or click here for additional screenshots and a full features list.
Maptive Spreadsheet Editor: Paste data directly into the Spreadsheet Editor for one-stop editing, search and sorting capabilities. Need to get your revised data out? Use 'Export' to easily copy and paste data to your spreadsheet software.
Map display Options: Currently includes 5 professionally designed marker choices, and the ability to handle up to 100 categories of grouped markers. Marker bubbles have been redesigned to elegantly display all location based information from your spreadsheet.
Proximity Search: Display locations within a specified radius circle of any selected marker.
Simplified Routing: Select 'Get Directions' from an address marker, then select another marker to show directions between locations.
Additional Maptive Features
• Support & ongoing software/service improvements
• Advertising & BatchGeo branding removed
• Geocode & manage larger numbers of addresses – 5,000 +
• World class hosting by RackSpace.com – Awards & Expertise
• Group addresses by customer, sales person, region, etc. – 6+
• Database syncing with map
• Custom marker branding
Maptive screenshots and complete features list >
2010 Year End Stats
2010 was a big year for BatchGeo. We went through a huge redesign and rebranding effort, which resulted in an over 100% boost in traffic to the site. We also launched our premium product Maptive which is growing extremely fast.
Here are some statistics from 2010:
- 317,518 maps created
- 76,533 users
- Over 12,000 websites using our maps
We’re looking forward to another fantastic year of growth and improvements in our service. Have a happy holiday season!
Fun maps with Wikipedia
I don’t know why Wikipedia doesn’t have a built in mapping system, but I love making maps with their data. Here were some quick ones I made with BatchGeo:
World’s Largest 100 Economies Map
I want my 3D Maps (on Android) with KML
Google has been giving some sneak peaks at their new 3D / vector based maps for Android. We can only hope this will soon becoming to their HTML5 API so we can make it available to all BatchGeo / Maptive users.
There have been a lot of questions as to why Google did not include the 3D Google Earth functionality in the version 3 of their Google Maps API as they had in Google Maps version 2, this could be the reason.
Our hope is that the vector format matches the existing Google Earth KML spec, as there are a number of tools available for creating KML from a number of different formats.
The video below has a few glimses of the next version of Android “Honeycomb.” The 3D maps start about a minute and half in.
The Guardian uses BatchGeo
The Guardian featured a map from BatchGeo recently. The map highlighted technology startups in the UK. The Guardian is an extremely popular newspaper, with an exceptional online readership.
BatchGeo has become very popular with online journalism since its so fast and easy to use.
Maps now optimized for IPhone and Android
We spent some time recently to update our mapping capabilities to work better on the IPhone and Android platforms. Now when you look at a BatchGeo map on these platforms, the display will be sized appropriately. Also it will use the phone’s GPS to find the nearest location on the map, if you are interested in that.
We will be looking at other platforms in the future including Blackberry and the new Windows Phone 7 OS. Your feedback is appreciated, please feel free to post your experiences here.
Printing issues – a new fix is in
We’ve talked about printing issues before, now it appears that we have found a fix that should work for enabling printing in all browsers. I am hopeful that this will solve problems once and for all, but please try for yourself and post your results here.
Google requests disabling of geocoding output
Google has officially requested that we disable some elements of our site that allow users to extract geocoded coordinates in bulk. It is in violation of their Terms of Service agreement. Many of the rules in the TOS are requirements of third party data providers that do not like their data being accessible outside of whichever system they have licensed it to.
I find this an unfortunate turn of events, but from our stats I recognize the majority of users do not use the geocoding export feature but rather keep their data hosted on BatchGeo by saving their map. We will of course continue to offer free map hosting to all interested, and look forward to rolling out more features all of the time to keep our users happy.
BatchGeo is still the quickest way to make a map!