[Baypiggies] [OT] Launch Mapatree.org

[Venkatraman S]

On Wed, May 5, 2010 at 12:09 AM, Johan Mickelin <johan.mickelin at gmail.com>wrote:

> Heres your competition:
> http://www.urbanforestmap.org/
>
>
Not exactly. That is a nice initiative on which i stumbled after i launched
Map-a-Tree .

Map-a-Tree started off as a weekend hack to get something onto App Engine
and also try Google's Map API. And then some brainstorming with a pal led to
what it is now. I want to keep the site as light weight as possible so that
it can be easily accessible on the mobile phones; and also the number of
clicks be reduced to the bare minimum without sacrificing any design
aesthetics. Also, we dont want to have a 'login' system in place; trying to
avoid it as much as possible for easier and faster user registration (not
sure whether we might finally end up having one. Atleast, if there is one,
then we will not make it mandatory)

Some numbers : You will see that the Map-a-Tree loads in 8.34s with just
182.6KB of data being downloaded whereas UrbanForestMap loads in 16.5s with
443.2KB downloaded data (numbers got from Firebug). Also, note that 182.6KB
in the case of Map-a-Tree is the 'actual main' page of the site whereas i
haven't done pagewise analysis of UFM.

But there are some pluses with UFM too : The site looks way better than
Map-a-Tree and also has partnered with agencies who are related to this
field. The site being promoted from US might have better access to sponsors
and also media light. (I take time out after my day job to do this for
Map-a-Tree)

I hope that by the end of this month Map-a-Tree will be a much *neater *website
, with all the technical glitches sorted out and with better user adoption
which would enable me in contacting the agencies who are related to this
field and show them the merits of this effort.

Another BIG advantage that Map-a-Tree has (again technical) : this runs on
App Engine and this reduces operational costs to the bare min. I have spent
only around 8$ on getting the domain registered alone, and nothing else.
Other than that it has mostly been sweat on developing and promoting the
site. Since this is a personal non-profit effort, i want to keep the costs
to the bare minimum till i get some sponsorships.

Lets see how Map-a-Tree fares.

-V
@mapatree <http://twitter.com/mapatree>
@venkasub <http://twitter.com/venkasub>
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