A few days ago I spoke at GeekUp Liverpool about a site that I’ve been playing around with for just over a year. This is the second time I’d spoken publicly about it, the last being at WhereCamp, so I thought I really should put something on my blog too.

mapme.at is a site that I’ve been working on to allow me to log my location in a number of different ways. I originally set it up after the BBC/Yahoo Hack Day in 2007 as somewhere to put the code that I’d written for tracking my location using DNS. Since then I unfortunately haven’t really had much time to spend on it but have managed to develop some parts of it so that it has, for instance: FireEagle and Twitter (direct messages) integration, mapping location through DNS, email, web and mobile app, and the beginnings of a social network aspect.

I recently set-up a blog for it too, the first post highlights a few of the reasons that I think location tracking can be useful on the web. I’ll probably go into more details on that in future posts too. The second post is more instructional, about signing up and creating your first “favourite” on the site, again I’ll likely write a few more posts along those lines. I’m also hoping to go into some detail on the development of the site, including some issues I come across - the first of which is likely to be looking at methods of removing errors that my GPS sends through to the site.

Though the site has been in development for over a year, I really been able to put much time into developing it, tending to add a feature that I want from time to time. Also the site is in definite need of some sprucing up, hopefully I’ll get to that, or get someone else onto it soon. That said it’s quite functional and has a number of interesting ways that you can use to log your location, so get on there and set yourself up with an account or read more over on the mapme.at blog.

Trace of a 5k run on the River MerseyTrace of a 5k run on the River Mersey
(straight lines are my trip from and to home which I didn’t trace).