The Official SoarPort Blog

Earn money Now!

2008-05-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

SoarPort now allows anyone to upload a large image and include their Google Adsense ID to help earn extra money! Every time your large image is displayed at SoarPort.com, the Google Ads which appear can be linked to your publisher ID. That means that any clicks generated will put money in your pocket. How about that for putting your big images to work!

To begin, simply click on the "Upload" button at SoarPort.com. In the form, specify your Adsense ID (along with the file to upload and title, description, tags, etc). Click on "Save" and your image will be uploaded to SoarPort and your Adsense ID will map to all ads displayed when your SoarPort is shown.

Happy Earnings!

Coming soon: monetization

2008-05-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

We're working to include your adsense code in our pages. Look for updates over the next couple of days. We're checking to make sure this meets with Google's TOS (wouldn't it have to? After all this site (blogger) does precisely what I'm talking about).

The end result will be that pages within the SoarPort.com site which display your content (i.e. when you search/browse for soarports and click on one to go to the display page) all of the adsense advertising shown will be linked to your account. This is a huge opportunity for image publishers, since 80% of the revenue currently earned at SoarPort.com comes from our display page advertising.

Looks for revenue sharing to be an option when you upload new images. Everyone can participate - even anonymous users! All you will be asked to do is provide your adsense publisher id when you upload an image to SoarPort!!

Milestone: 100 SoarPorts

2008-05-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

As noted in the post about SoarPort's milestone of 50 members, SoarPort has now achieved another milestone: 100 SoarPorts have been uploaded.

SoarPort's appeal appears to be spreading. What we'll begin to do is note our milestones on a larger scale. We do have a milestone soon which will be written up: 100 members. Look for that milestone to occur within the next month or so. After that point, the next milestones will be 500 SoarPorts and Members.

So watch for those notices to appear over the next 6 months.

Powered By blogging

2008-05-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

SoarPort is pretty much powered by the influence of bloggers at this point. That's really excellent. In reviewing the website statistics for SoarPort it is clear that there is some buzz in the blogosphere about SoarPort and that it is those bloggers who are driving most of the interest and traffic at SoarPort.

So to all of you who have blogged about SoarPort, Thanks!!

The Wangtam Effect

2008-05-16T03:41:00.000-07:00

SoarPort was the topic of a blog entry at Wangtam.com. That's great - its great to see people blogging about SoarPort with their opinions and suggestions. One of the things the blogger at Wangtam did for us as well, was to actually embed the SoarPort viewer. That's really the point, isn't it? Its tough to brag about your ability to improve a blog without seeing the SoarPort viewer right there. And the effect has been marvelous.

Wangtam.com is a site which operates in China - or at least has a significant Chinese audience. I'm seeing a lot of visitors from China this morning, and that is really excellent. Hopefully viewers (Chinese and otherwise) will enjoy what they see.

Amazing...guests from Venezuela

2008-05-15T16:49:00.001-07:00

Its is amazing to me to think about how far reaching the power of the internet really is. SoarPort is a fun and effective site for displaying images. But the real power of the internet for me is seeing who is joining SoarPort and where they are from. One of our members is from Venezuela, and that is really fascinating to me.

Obviously, if you live in Venezuela, then its no big deal...someone from your home country visited the site. But I am physically located in Canada, which is several thousand KMs away. Also visiting the site have been people from far off places such as Australia and Romania. In fact, there has been a fairly low number of visitors thus far, but they have arrived from amazingly diverse regions of the earth.

I hope SoarPort is as interesting to me in Canada as it is to those visiting from other countries. If not, I'd like to hear about changes or suggestions at contact@soarport.com. In the meantime, I'm going to continue gazing!

They way people see it

2008-05-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

When I originally created SoarPort, I intended to appeal to people with large diagrams - such as floorplans, class diagrams, etc. What has happened is that people with large photography have begun to add their content. Technically, it makes no difference, but it is interesting to see a tool created for a specific use, then used for other tasks as well. Kind of like how you can use a credit card to open a door (or at least that's how they used to do it on TV). In "the biz" they call this sort of action "ubiquity" - where something becomes all encompassing. Google is ubiquitous for searching at this point (and the past 10 years as well). If it is an image and its big and people then think "soarport", then what more can we do? That really is the top of the mountain for SoarPort.

So I would like to thank all our early adopters for their creative use of SoarPort. You may not realize it outright, but you are helping to make SoarPort better.

So Thanks!

Milestone: 50 Accounts

2008-05-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

This week marks a milestone in the history of SoarPort: Our 50th user account. Soon we will also note another significant milestone: our 100th SoarPort. Look for that to occur in the next 30 days!

Small tools update

2008-05-12T20:15:00.001-07:00

I've added some small updates to the site. Now you can add the latest SoarPort feeds to your iGoogle account, accessible in the tools section on the main page. Also, there is an Alexa rank image. This is experiemental. We'll see how this goes, if there is any discernable benefit to including this. Finally, some plumbing changes: meta tags are out, and opensearchdescription.xml is in. This was done to improve search results, and we'll have to wait and see if there is a benefit to doing this.

An open letter to Homeplans.com

2008-05-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

I recently went to Homeplans.com. If ever there was a site that was a match made in heaven for SoarPort, its Homeplans.com. Homeplans.com (as you might guess) sells floorplans for home construction. Here is an example of their work:

Now, here is how they currently show floorplans:

Here is my suggestion:

The advantage is that customers can see the full floorplan within the existing page - there is no need to open a new window to see the full sized floorplan.

I'd like to see SoarPort used at Homeplans.com. It really is an excellent fit.

Changes have begun

2008-05-10T04:17:00.000-07:00

Relative to the items in the last SoarPort blog post, changes have taken place. I've used a number of resources to help accomplish this much, and one of the key things to keep in mind is, this type of change doesn't end. Consider this resource: 10GoldenRules.com. This site offers - as you might guess - 10 "Golden Rules" on how to market your site. I won't give away all 10 rules, after all, they have an easy to download podcast for that. But I will talk about 1 rule which is featured prominently: testing. Because it is so cheap to test on the internet, they recommend test, test, test, until you get a result you like. Excellent advice. Look for more testing in the weeks ahead.

Look for changes

2008-05-07T04:11:00.001-07:00

I recently received some excellent feedback on SoarPort. From the list, the changes that will occur on SoarPort in the next month will include:

1. Entry page improvements: "there's
nothing on the first page that tells me what the actual purpose is"
2. Sign up page improvements: "There's nothing there that tells me why I would want to be a member, and
how being a member would benefit me"
3. Explanation of system requirements: "I couldn't see anything useful until I enabled scripts. " I've never run the site without scripts, so I will have to see what can be done technically to over come this. If this cannot be dealt with technically, then a note must appear to instruct the user to enable their javascript.
4. Fewer ads (if any) "It appears that the
purpose of the site is to sell Google Ads". There is a place for advertising, but not in the areas where it was previously placed. I will explore different options for advertising.
5. More Zoom levels "Once I did enable scripts all I saw was an image viewer that has very
limited zoom capabilities. " Fewer zoom levels was part of the proof of concept, where when testing I wanted to get the image in place quickly. I can change the zoom levels to 10, and eventually look at increasing that number as well. Recent technical improvements to how tiles are created has made the footprint of a stored image not a problem for more zoom levels.

I have begun to work on these changes already, and will roll out a fix to address each of these issues by June 1, 2008. There may be more refinement required after that point, but there will be an effort made to address each of these items by that time.

Free 10MB Image Uploads

2008-05-05T18:46:00.000-07:00

Geez, I almost forgot: the size limit for individual uploads is now (virtually) gone. I was able to make some image processing improvements, which meant that I could save something like 90% of the disk space the original beta took up when creating tiles. So a 10MB image file now has a much smaller footprint. Enjoy.

Patterns of imagery

2008-05-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

It would certainly seem that in the early going SoarPort members are uploading photography. I've made some modifications to help ensure that works as expected. It is a funny thing, given the opportunity to "soar", you do tend to do more analysis of photos. For example, consider this image of 2 parrots:

The white and grey bird has some weird reflective glob on his beak. At first, I thought it was his eye, but via the zoom capabilities in SoarPort, I got right in there an found it was light reflecting off his somewhat shiny beak.

The benefits of hosting copyright material

2008-05-04T08:08:00.001-07:00

Soarport provides a unique way in which to host copyrighted material. Using the SoarPort viewer, a large dimension image cannot simply be downloaded from a web site and used directly in other applications. SoarPort converts large dimension images into tiles, which are then re-assembled in the SoarPort viewer. That means publishers who wish to show a Wallpaper to audiences may do so without having that audience actually download the image. SoarPort provides a means to guide the audience to provide an opportunity to engage viewers in a more rich overall experience.

Recently on SoarPort, a number of desktop screen captures / wallpapers have been uploaded. You can see the effect of this usage in the SoarPort below, where a calendar can be seen, and the details of the application can be explained along side the actual image.

Small defect corrected

2008-05-03T20:57:00.001-07:00

When adding a new image to SoarPort, there was a problem where at full zoom, the right-most column of image data was lost. This was (hopefully) a fairly non-invasive issue. At any rate, I had incorrectly referenced some top and left coordinates, so I have refactored them and now uploads behave as expected. Here is a resulting SoarPort with the final column fix:

Slow build

2008-05-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

Soarport is still building, which is good to see. Every day, I notice the number of result the word "soarport" has on Google. This is a metric I have used a lot in the past - start with a concept whose name produces 0 results on Google, then track how many results increase over time to determine if the site is progressing. So, when SoarPort started, the term "soarport" yielded 0 results. Then, once SoarPort was reviewed by Mashable, that number increased to 750. Slowly, as syndication sites picked up the story, and as individuals blogged about SoarPort, the results number increased. It's not quite a household term, but the results on Google currently total about 4000. I know it is very easy to get to about 20,000, so I certainly have some work to do. But 4000 is a good start, nonetheless...and Google results is certainly one of, if not "the" key metric to track.

Let the creativity begin!

2008-05-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

I'd like to thank bradfor an excellent upload - a view of Whistler Mountain:

This is a really excellent application of SoarPort to deliver functionality you would not be easily able to find either via a traditional mapping tool (i.e. Google Maps) or through the publishing of the larger image to a web page. I really like it!

2 New Minor Updates

2008-05-02T04:46:00.000-07:00

Thanks to cesar I've added a new category: Desktops / Wallpapers.

Also, I've adjusted the way tiles are created, so now they will be smaller in size, which means better performance.

Here's my desktop (windows NT 4.0 workstation - rocks)

Slow burn

2008-05-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

Patience is a virtue, and the adoption rate of SoarPort has been a little less enthusiastic than I had hoped. Oh well, still off to a fairly good start. Those who have reviewed the site are favorable, and we've begun to see people bookmark the site.

I've been working to fill out some of the missing content, although my preference would be to have the greater community fill in the gaps (Come on, guys!). In any event, here is Yankee Stadium:

KillerStartups.com...wow!

2008-04-29T17:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

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!)

2008-04-26T18:06:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

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:

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:

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:

And the resulting SoarPort:

SoarPort RSS Feed is live

2008-04-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

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)

2008-04-21T18:06:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

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: