Finally, I’ve found a few spare minutes to blog about Mapumental - 4iP’s latest investment. Mapumental is mySociety’s new travel map project and an extension of work they started 2006/7. Mapumental takes the nation’s bus, train, tram, tube and boat timetables and turns them into a service that does vastly more than imagined by traditional journey planners. Mapumental launched yesterday in private beta and I thought I’d touch on a few of the reasons why we’re so excited about it and why 4iP decided to back it.
Unlike some of the recent commissions we reveled in yesterday’s Guardian this is a deal we inked a few months ago but the technical challenges were so great we thought better of revealing it earlier. To my mind, this is exactly where 4iP should be, taking risks by investing in UK digital talent to push the boundaries of what’s possible on the net. I doubt there are many UK investors that would put up the money when the founders themselves weren’t sure the product was technically achievable. The original time travel maps took a day to calculate the map for a single location. Mapumental delivers a map for any location in the UK in seconds. Hats off to the amazing Francis Irving and Matthew Somerville.
In this first version we hope the UK public will use Mapumental to help them make decisions like where to live, where to work and where to send the kids to school. From the homepage you can enter a postcode for a place of work, a college, or anywhere you have to be regularly. A beautiful bespoke map is then displayed showing where you might be able to live if you wanted to commute for less than an hour and arrive by 9am. Using the sliders at the top of the page you can choose to limit the given area by house price or change the length of your commute. If you’re interested in a white label version of this or want to add additional data sets then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me or the folks at mySociety directly.
Here are some of my favourite examples showing where you might want to live if you wanted to reach the Houses of Parliament by 9am and found it acceptable to commute for an hour and a half. Given the modest means of public servants these days I’ve asked the map only to show areas where the house prices are less than £500,000!
Here it is zoomed in…
But there’s a third slider…. We know how many MPs like to ensure they live some where aesthetically pleasing. So I’ve said scenicness has to be more than 3.0. The scenicness data has been derived from the awesome ScenicorNot site. Modelled on the HotOrNot website, ScenicOrNot presents visitors with snaps of rural and urban locations rather than people. The presented images are rated on a 1 to 10 scale and slowly the crowd builds a data layer of British scenicness. The pictures are drawn from the Geograph database of over 200,000 images each of which is representative of 1km square of land.
As well as answering some of the more serious of life’s questions the product is beautiful and fun to use (thanks Stamen!). Here one from John O Groats showing how far you can’t get in 3hrs. Clearly not the best place to live unless you have a car!
MyScoiety’s director, Tom Steinberg, has put together a brilliant video showing mapumental in more detail.
For 4iP and mySociety Mapumental is about taking large public data (crime, communication,education) sets and making them accessible and understandable to the man in the street. Mapmaking has long fulfilled one of our deepest desires: understanding the world around us and our place in it. We hope that Mapumental takes this understanding one stage further venturing beyond the boundaries of geographical convention to deliver something of real use to the UK public. In addition we hope that over time Mapumental can deliver significant and sustainable commercial revenue back to mySociety giving them the time and space to come up with more ways to keep an eye on money and power.
It’s very early days for Mapumental and we’d love to hear what you think. Sign up for the beta and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. We already have plans to include more data sets and launch some more social functionality but your thoughts will be vital in determining the future of the product.
Colin Jack on Wed, June 03, 2009 at 2:16 said:
This sounds great and I’ve subscribed to the beta site. What I would like to see is average weather information. I live in the “frozen North” Inverness area where last week we had the highest temperatures in the UK. The fact is that although the area is referred to as the Highlands because of the proximity of mountains, the population mainly lives at sea level where the temperatures, rainfall, snow etc are very similar to the rest of the country, and since the cities are all coastal, they suffer less from frosts than the centre of Southern England. The misconception about weather seriously affects businesses when deciding on locations. Digitally based businesses such as Insuarance companies can locate anywhere, and the Highlands can offer a fantastic lifestyle for employees as well as cheaper accomodation, lack of traffic congestion, and clean air.
Free Reminder on Mon, July 27, 2009 at 10:05 said:
Mapumental it’s very, very cool! I wish they had cycling times for their travel maps though.
Free Flash Arcade on Wed, July 29, 2009 at 10:24 said:
The concept behind Mapumental is a really good one. Just the thought of having information readily available not only to the highly literate people but to others as well makes me realize that information dissemination is not that hard these days.
Search Engine on Fri, July 31, 2009 at 9:58 said:
So where exactly do i sign-up for the Mapumental beta?
Senuke on Thu, August 06, 2009 at 9:39 said:
This mapumental looks like a great project, I wish you all the best.
Digitalkamera Tests on Mon, August 24, 2009 at 10:41 said:
very interesting video!
Palladium Resorts on Tue, August 25, 2009 at 10:48 said:
“Mapumental to help them make decisions like where to live, where to work and where to send the kids to school.” Now that’s a very useful feature. Although, I don’t think it’s wise to leave important decisions to an application.
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Western Digital on Wed, August 26, 2009 at 1:02 said:
very impressive article, nice. i’ll subscribe to the beta site
Etiquetas personalizadas on Thu, August 27, 2009 at 2:51 said:
This sound new to me.. Thanks for sharing this.
Houston Insurance on Fri, August 28, 2009 at 9:54 said:
This one interest me a lot. Does it work like Google maps?
Insurance Leads on Tue, September 01, 2009 at 8:09 said:
At first I thought it was more like GPS but, yes, it’s like Google maps but more in depth. Is it still on beta?
Cell Phone APPs on Thu, September 03, 2009 at 4:17 said:
Is this still on beta? I think that this application is very useful. Having a map on my iPhone wold be great. Al least I’m assured that I won’t be lost if I have my phone with me.
life cover on Tue, September 08, 2009 at 10:32 said:
waooo a totally new innovation!it works like google map or better. I wish the success of Mapumental.
Blue-Ray DVDs on Tue, September 08, 2009 at 10:03 said:
No wonder why ipone is considered as one of the leading commercial platform today. They just can’t run out of great applications.
Palladium Resorts on Wed, September 09, 2009 at 1:14 said:
I found the video very information. Definately would be good for i-phone.
Tax Relief on Fri, September 11, 2009 at 6:01 said:
These images are outstanding! I have never seen anything like them. Very unique to me for sure. Keep up the good writing!
overcoming panic attacks on Fri, September 11, 2009 at 6:03 said:
You did some great research on 4iP it looks like. I think I am going to continue to do some researching and come back to comment again and possibly add some good information for you as well. Thank you so much for your great post!
Anime on Fri, September 11, 2009 at 10:23 said:
The iPhone is definitely leading the industry right now in so many ways. It will be tough to beat.
Canvas Prints on Sat, September 12, 2009 at 10:42 said:
The last picture is definitely harder to understand. Not sure exactly what it is showing.
Rasierer on Wed, September 16, 2009 at 5:44 said:
waooo a totally new innovation!it works like google map or better. I wish the success of Mapumental. The concept behind Mapumental is a really good one. Just the thought of having information readily available not only to the highly literate people but to others as well makes me realize that information dissemination is not that hard these days.
Voucher on Sat, September 19, 2009 at 1:32 said:
Hmm great idea, definitely a travel map with a twist
self catering holiday cottage inverness on Fri, October 09, 2009 at 6:01 said:
wow,
cool post
thanks for sharing the information.
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Rob on Tue, October 13, 2009 at 10:06 said:
Well done for supporting this project. The site is fantastic and just shows the benefit of joining together disparate information.
UK Insurance Information on Fri, October 23, 2009 at 10:19 said:
Some great stuff here and you should be commended for supporting this program so compasionately. You may wish to address your finances at Insurance Information which will help you to afford and plan future initiatives.
watch gossip girl online on Fri, October 30, 2009 at 9:43 said:
The concept with mapumental is really nice.
This would be a very good tandem. This also proves that 4ip keeps on growing!
dofollow bookmarking on Wed, November 11, 2009 at 5:21 said:
Great story and application. Also, they’re nice graphics you posted. Thanks.
Computer printer ink on Sat, November 14, 2009 at 6:17 said:
Online maps are where the internet is headed. Glad that 4Ip is getting into this field now
xowii on Wed, November 25, 2009 at 10:54 said:
For 4iP and mySociety Mapumental is about taking large public data (crime, communication,education) sets and making them accessible and understandable to the man in the street. Mapmaking has long fulfilled one of our deepest desires: understanding the world around us and our place in it. We hope that Mapumental takes this understanding one stage further venturing beyond the boundaries of geographical convention to deliver something of real use to the UK public. In addition we hope that over time Mapumental can deliver significant and sustainable commercial revenue back to mySociety giving them the time and space to come up with more ways to keep an eye on money and power.
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chris on Tue, January 05, 2010 at 5:18 said:
that is so cool!
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Self Catering in Whitby on Thu, January 07, 2010 at 3:57 said:
looks good. anyone else used it?
down comforter sets on Wed, January 13, 2010 at 7:51 said:
Well well well, I wonder what this is all about.
Abbott on Fri, February 19, 2010 at 3:52 said:
Good vibes and good trip, that is all about, good companies and people are a hell of a memory gift, anyway Nice blog Ill keep track of this one.
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auto content cash on Tue, March 09, 2010 at 4:47 said:
great info. thanks heaps
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