Imagine planning a get-together with friends and trying to decide on a venue or location that will work for everyone. Distance, routes, and traffic times are just a few factors to consider, and often difficult to visualize if you’re communicating by email or telephone.
MapChat is a new communication medium that combines existing services such as instant messenger and maps.
It allows you and your networks to chat simultaneously over the backdrop of an interactive map, transforming a simple online map into a shared digital environment to search and explore locations, and generate discussions about those locations.
The MapChat demo gives you a glimpse at a whole new way of planning that next rendezvous. We invite you to connect with your friends and family and discover a more efficient way of planning your activities.
MapChat was created by the Economics and Social Systems group
Feedback
Other Demos
- Political Hashtag Trends
- Amoeba
- InStore
- 4Cast
- Political Search Trends
- Quest
- Predictalot
- Shambling Hordes
- Motif
- Correlator
MapChat Blog
- Nov 20, 2009 - Goodbye MapChat
- Jul 3, 2008 - Introducing MapChat
Love it! Suggestions: - Make it work in the Safari browser on Windows XP - Provide a FAQ or make it easier to find Help if it does exist - Allow a zip code to be entered in place of a city Question for FAQ: - In location search, what does the Private checkbox do? Who can and who can't see my search if I did or didn't check it?
Comment by Larry (August 18, 2008, 11:16 pm)Great suggestions Larry. We're looking at adding a Help section (or possibly a quick intro) soon. Zip codes are already supported, and we've made a couple of tweaks that should improve performance in Safari on WinXP. The private checkbox hides your searches from other chatters in the session (so only you would see the search query and results if you had "Private" checked)
Comment by Pras Sarkar (August 27, 2008, 8:43 pm)This is great!!! Will we be able to have API's to this tool so we can add it to some of the applications that we are building? - Also it doesn't seem that the map gets to Africa. Typed in Johannesburg but it didn't show anything. - Will it sit on yahoo IM or will it launch from main yahoo page? - Can you do offline chats, meaning leave messages for friends who are offline to look at the suggested venue (if thats what was being planned).
Comment by nyasha (September 11, 2008, 6:25 pm)interesting - but when i use the "send email invitations" facility, the email did happen... and there WAS a link to the web tool... but that link didn't take me to the actual conversation that was in place (it just took me to the mapchat main page)... it should take you directly to the actual chat that generated the invite - and it should then give you the option of joining that chat with a temporary name or sign into your yahoo name and then begin chatting...
Comment by gary (June 5, 2009, 5:44 am)Unless i'm missing something, the list of names in the IM box are the screen names compared to the real names that show up in my Yahoo! Messenger. I have no clue anyone's screen name so it's hard to select someone. plus, there wasn't a search function so i don't have to scroll looking for the contact name, just search for it since i know who i want to select.
Comment by Greg (August 14, 2009, 10:00 pm)Tell us what you think, leave a comment: