KillerStartups.com...wow!

SoarPort was just reviewed by KillerStartups.com (SoarPort.com---Large-Dimension-Image-Publishing). Although the review was very favorable, what I find more important is that they "get it". I've been concerned that the idea is maybe not obvious enough, but KillerStartups.com has helped alleviate that concern.

SoarPort gives users a very easy way to upload things such as brain maps and floor plans, allowing people to view the images in a more in depth and easier to see way.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Seriously...I may borrow that line.

I genuinely hope more people recognize the potential of SoarPort as KillerStartups.com has, and use it to their benefit. It is free of course...its sole function is to provide a service to a publishing category that has had no attention till now: large dimension image publishing.

Reviewed on Mashable

Mashable.com was kind enough to take a moment to review SoarPort. The post can be found here: http://mashable.com/2008/04/28/soarport-is-scribd-for-big-photos-the-startup-review/

It sounds like a kinda lukewarm review, and I personally don't see the similarity between SoarPortand Scribd. I think Scribd has their view of what they want to publish and how, and other than the fact we both provide embedded viewers, we're pretty much in separate circles. Oh well, all that means is I've got more work to help educate people on what SoarPort is supposed to do. I do certainly appreciate the comment that our focus on large dimension images may lead to us being best of breed. That would be the intention...SoarPort is not trying to be a publisher of all media (that would be more down Scribd's alley). Instead, we are providing a unique way to display a large dimension image. I honestly believe there will come a day where you won't consider listing a house for sale on the internet without an accompanying SoarPort of the floorplan. It seems like such a natural fit: you want your audience to spend a little extra time looking at the property, and SoarPort provides that opportunity. Given that SoarPort is free, it seems like an absolute no-brainer. Here's an example:



So thanks very much to Mashable for their kind review.

Synthasite is the ultimate web editor (and it works with SoarPort flawlessly!)

As far as web editors go, Synthasite is an amazing web editor. I only discovered it by accident - a very timely accident, but an accident nonetheless. I was recently surfing at TechCrunch and low and behold, there it was.

So I created some pages and decided to see if SoarPort could be embedded. Well, since Synthasite supports HTML, the embed code from any SoarPort works like a charm. You simply overwrite the original HTML code in the HTML widget, and replace it with the SoarPort embed code. And there it is!

I've sent a note to Synthasite because I would like to see if we can better integrate SoarPort as a widget for them. Slick meets slick.

SoarPort 102: Embedding Tutorial

On the display page for each SoarPort, you can choose to copy and paste the "embed" code to place the SoarPort into your own webpages.

You can accept the defaults, and the result is a SoarPort which is 400 pixels wide by 400 pixels tall. And the zoom level is the lowest value - which means the image content is fully zoomed out.

With some minor modifications, you can customize your SoarPort to change the dimensions and the zoom level prior to embedding in your site. Consider the following SoarPort embed code:

<iframe style="border:1px solid #cecece" src="http://www.soarport.com/soarport1.0.0.0.php?a=2&i=30" width="400" height="400" ></iframe>

This code contains an HTML element called an "iframe", or inline frame. That means the contents of another webpage are displayed within the boundaries of the box created by the iframe. In this case, the iframe has a width and a height attribute. Notice how they are both 400. If you change the width to 200 and the height to 450, here is the resulting code:

<iframe style="border:1px solid #cecece" src="http://www.soarport.com/soarport1.0.0.0.php?a=2&i=30" width="200" height="450" ></iframe>

And here is the resulting SoarPort:



To set the default zoom level, you can add a hidden switch to the URL of the iframe. Zoom is expressed as the parameter "z". In the following code, a zoom level of 3 is specified:

<iframe style="border:1px solid #cecece" src="http://www.soarport.com/soarport1.0.0.0.php?a=2&i=30&z=3" width="400" height="400" ></iframe>

And the resulting SoarPort:

SoarPort RSS Feed is live

SoarPort now has an RSS feed of the latest content to be added to the system. You can subscribe here:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/SoarportRssFeed

(You may also notice that the feed items appear in this blog as well, in the pane to the right of this content.)

SoarPort 101

Even though the idea of SoarPort is a simple one to me, it may not be obvious to everyone how to use the site. So, I have put together a quick and easy to follow tutorial. Naturally, I've used SoarPort to provide the SoarPort 101 tutorial:



Through the above SoarPort, hopefully the workflow of how to host large dimension images on SoarPort is clear.

If you have any questions, please let me a comment.

Added a sitemap

I added an "official" sitemap to SoarPort.com. At the same time, I thought I would take the opportunity to add a visual representation of the sitemap to use within the site itself. I used Gliffy.com, which is super slick...and has to be a future acquisition of Google.com.

Take a look:

Tiny feature update (and demo)

I added a super tiny feature today: a Web Pages category. You can browse the SoarPorts in this category here. I threw together a funny example: a recursive look at SoarPort.com.

Just when you think you know everything

So I started this thing out to make it easy to publish large dimension images. Well, mission not accomplished. It turns out that most places where you would want to embed stuff reacts badly to the way I chose to do it (IFRAME). I was experimenting with Facebook`s funwall, and it didn`t work. So, I tried to do a little research, and came upon this page: Bunnytech. It appears the embed code will have to be reworked so that the simple IFRAME is replaced with a SCRIPT with a remote src attribute.

Dang. (The existing IFRAMEs will always work, the SCRIPT will be ~in addition to~...)

In the beginning

It all started with a really cool idea. An idea to make better use of technology to do something that could really provide something interesting for the people who used the technology. And the idea didn`t even originate or become what is now SoarPort. The idea was entirely someone else`s.

SoarPort`s original conception occured while I was surfing at a site - which, accurately so, can be described as a mash-up - that blended a real time view of Flickr`s images as they were uploaded, with the geolocation afforded by Google maps. I took one look at FlickrVision, and I was hooked. In my way of viewing the world, Flickrvision is a critically important site. The reason? It showcases impressive technology, but does so for a very human purpose. Through Flickrvision, I can get a feel for what is happening on this planet right now...not as provided through the bias of a reporter seeking to get a great story, but more like `well, there is it. Your earth.` A hitchhiker in the fog in Australia; a cart with boxes piled on it in Hong Kong; a man eating his lunch in Texas...you get the idea: not so much the big story, but the real story.

The area of focus in my professional life is and has always been software. So it should come with little surprise that Flickrvision had awakened in me a realization that mapping technology could be used effectively in more ways than originally intended. Flickrvision used Google Maps to make the connection between Flickr`s images and their point of origin more poignant. In a similar way, I began to ask if there were other uses for the technology which had to this point remained unexplored.

For all the exploration that must have occured over the years - through MapQuest, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, etc - its pretty ironic that there appears to have been little exploration of the technology itself. Hopefully, with the introduction of SoarPort, that will change.

Here`s an early sample: