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MapJack outperforms Google Street View

MapJack It is an application similar to Street View, although it surpasses it with a good amount of functionalities. Of course, since it is not from Google, nor does it handle that amount of millions, nothing ensures that it will survive an acquisition or the economic crisis.

It is a development worked on the Google API, it is based on the nice idea of ​​a character called Jack, so that "you see what jack would see", a little better than the Google character that looks more like a man run over in the street ; Now let's see the advantages of these artists.

Better panoramic management

The top viewfinder is built over the Adobe Flash viewer, and has better resolution than Google views. The zoom has a good close-up and you can control distortion caused by perspective view.

Mapsjack

Here you have many functionalities to control the brightness, contrast and quality of the image; you can even control the projection. You can also hide the visual aids and the grid of the images that make up the panorama.

Best Tools

The development shows three frames, but the best they have is that you can drag the edges both vertical and horizontal, allowing them to be updated dynamically.

Map jack

image

imageAt the top there is an icon that allows you to see the latitude, longitude, approximate height, date of the image and click changes between the address and url.

 

Then the other tools in the corner allow you to control the next view, return to previously viewed maps, and control the image. Although the best is in the Jack figurine, which has a viewing cone that can be manipulated with a simple drag and dynamically changes the top view.

While these tools are quite good, it has some aspects that do not make it so popular or that pose a future not very well defined:

No censorship

We can not call this an advantage, for although perverts may be engaged in looking for girls on the lawn of San Francisco parks, the fact that they have not applied erasers to vehicles' plates and faces may sooner or later have a demand That ends with poor Jack.

Low coverage

So far there are only cities in the United States and Thailand; although according to the expectations of the creators they hope to reach more places soon, including Europe. While Google does not have much coverage to say either, lately it is showing its desire to get serious To enter Europe. This is the list of places that have already implemented MapJack

  • USA, Lake Tahoe
  • USA, Oakland
  • USA, Palo Alto
  • USA, San Francisco
  • USA, San Jose, USA
  • USA, Sausalito
  • USA, Yosemite National Park
  • Thailand, Ayutthaya
  • Thailand, Chiang Mai
  • Thailand, Hua Hin
  • Thailand, Krabi
  • Thailand, Mae Hong Son
  • Thailand, Pai
  • Thailand, Pattaya
  • Thailand, Phuket
  • There is no clarity in the business model

    With the exception of the "hot spots" and hotels on the routes, they do not present much information regarding traffic, market niche and advertising possibilities. Although there is much that can be done on this application, competition at the level of web maps is complicated and much depends on the traffic it moves. So unless they start selling good ideas, they're going to die because no one lives off pretty panoramas. Perhaps this last disadvantage is the result of not being the golden hands of Google and they end up being acquired by a giant that maps with a couple of dollars in each eye.

    Anyway, it seems a very creative idea, we will give you the benefit of the doubt to see how long you can survive in this way, without making money.

    Golgi Alvarez

    Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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