Great blog post from Tom

We get a lot of direct feedback from our users through comments, personal messages and direct emails. But sometimes the best feedback is indirect, like when a blogger writes about your site.

Tom - one of our top users - has a great blog "The Upper West Side Journal". He has a recent post about using the site that we really enjoyed.

A few months ago I badgered my friends to accept my invites to UpNext, which is a 3D map of Manhattan that shows nearly every listing on the island from copy centers to senior citizen lounges in stuyvestant town. I saw there were upgrades to UpNext and realized I hadn't been back to UpNext.com in a while, but even after being obsessed with the grid for nearly 2 years from my perch on the UWS this is still the best orientation tool. Instead of using the limited view in Facebook I thought I'd go full screen, and though I usually use UpNext to figure out the labyrinth of downtown, tonight I saw the new stars shining brightly on the UpperWestSide.

What are the other two restaurants? In addition to Eighty One which I haven't yet been to, Pinch, which I knew was moving from Rose Hill where I work on Park Ave copied a mass market restaurant innovation that I happen to know quite well. In its new home Pinch has done for locally grown comfort food groups what Yum! Brands did for fast food groups: they combined its usual customized pizza barges with customized mac and cheese pots through a merger with the East Village's S'mac (same link as 3 lines up if you missed it) .... (Click here to read the rest)

Thanks for the post Tom. You also get the award for most clever title. (You will have to click over to him original post and the screenshot, to understand the title.)

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Side Note: Captchas

Is it just me or are these captchas getting ridiculously hard? This was the third one I got after two failed attempts. I am surprised that the previous post ever got published.

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Cool Applets

Jim over at Altio in London has started a nice side blog on Cool Java Applets. There are only 2 entries now (we are the first) but he is looking for more.

I think this is a great idea that ties in well with his talk at JavaOne which he is presenting with Gary Thompson.

We are interested to see what other applets are out there. Send suggestions and urls over to Jim or Gary so that list can grow.

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Blog Post from Center Networks

Allen Stern from Center Networks has a nice little update on UpNext this morning.

He gives a nice run down on some new features and also talks about our continued focus on compatibility and stability.

(Click here to read article)

Just to comment further, the entire team has been working very hard on making the site more usable.

- Compatibility: There are a lot of different combinations of video cards/operating systems/browser/java versions out there. And when you are doing 3D these various combinations can cause a maze of compatibility issues. But we are getting very close to being at the level we want. Very close.

- Speed: Raj works tirelessly on getting the load time of the site down. We hope you noticed that both first time load and return loads are significantly faster. On the newer computers the load times are similar to any other site. This is a continual process and we will continue to optimize until the site loads even before you type in the url.

- Features: We are always adding new features both big and small. Some help you navigate the site better, others help you interact with the community easily. But we hope all the features make for a better experience.

Again, we always love feedback from our users. So let us know what you think in the comments.

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Compass and Navigation

This is something we have been meaning to get to for a while and it is finally here. There is now a compass on the bottom left of the map which will help with orientation and navigation.
Move/Translate - Click and hold on the Arrows to move in that direction. Or try the Joystick in the center by clicking on it and dragging in the direction you want to move.

Rotate - Click on any part of the Rotate Wheel and drag clockwise or counterclockwise to rotate.

Zoom - Use the zoom bar to move in and out of the map.

Tilt - Click on the Tilt Buttons to change the angle of the map.

Have fun flying around the city!

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