Loogic English

Imanol Iglesias is starting a social network for travel called Genviajero and has done it utilizing Google’s App Engine platform. I think this is the first site I’ve come across that is being built using the App Engine and I think it would be worth talking about a bit.

As we can see in the video of the presentation of App Engine made by Joaquin Cuenca in the Campus Party, what Google is looking for is to support those web projects that have the most possibilities for growth. If Google provides them with solutions for scalability, then we will have projects with high traffic and both Google and the project will be able to earn more money through advertising.

Here’s how Google App Engine works: the programmer, in this case Imanol, develops the application in Python (the only language available as of now) and uploads it to App Engine to have his web operational. The programmer doesn’t need to worry about databases, servers and other such issues related to the systems. App Engine also permits users to log in to the platform using their Google accounts, so users with existing accounts do not need to register on the web. As I am not a technical guy, I don’t want to go into detail in this aspect. If you want to know more, I recommend this article by Andreas Krohn.

As for Genviajero, I must say that as a social network for travellers, its basic function is sharing information on travel destinations and based on these favourites, make comments, opinions, recommendations, … Images of the sites added to the social network can be viewed on Panoramio, and soon it will allow users to upload their own pictures. On these lines, I think that in a social network like Genviajero, it makes a lot of sense to aggregate the maximum amount of information available related to places like hotels, restaurants, weather information, etc.

Kedin, a social network for events, is a project that I intend to follow closely because I believe it will set trends as far as business models are concerned. The founders of the company have a broad experience and very good contacts in the sector that enable them to reach deals we are going to talk about now.

The first deal is the commercialization by Telefonica of the advertising on the Kedin site. The department in Telefonica that deals with the advertising on the portals of the Telefonica group will also take the responsibility from now on for selling the advertising spaces on this site. In Kedin, they preferred a commercial deal with Telefonica instead of with some other advertising agencies because they know the great commercial force of the online sales department of Telefonica and believe that this will bring them some important benefits. Besides, the deal contemplates the realization of joint actions of promotion on the digital platforms of Telefonica, something that will help a great deal in publicizing Kedin.

A second deal is related to the upcoming launch of channels on Kedin, similar to the ones on YouTube, that are directed to the companies that want to promote events of their sector. The first theme channels on Kedin will be dedicated to events of Fashion, and events of Motorcycling, thanks to the deal reached with the editorial group G y J Motorpress.

Three months after the launch of Kedin, the figures are very encouraging: more than 10.000 events in its database, more than 2.000 registered users, and 100.000 unique users in the last month.

More information on the Kedin blog.

There are a multitude of sites on the internet with information on cooking recipes, but until now I had not come across a web application that allowed so many possibilities to manage recipes, plan the menus and create shopping lists.

Gustonic is a project of Llorenç Vallès and Jordi Vivancos (Pau García-Milá and Marc Cercos have contributed with their user interface skills).

Apart from the possibility of managing recipes, menus and shopping lists, Gustonic offers a planification tool that helps devise a balanced diet in function of the menus prepared by a user. The application makes a suggestion to the users when it detects that it is necessary to introduce new dishes or ingredients to improve the user’s diet.

Since it’s initial stages, Gustonic has a database of 3.000 recipes in 4 languages (Spanish, Catalan, English and French), and to this we can add more languages in which the users upload their recipes. So apart from the practical functions of planning and managing recipes, the site becomes a great collection that can be accessed by users in search of new ideas for cooking.

Wikiloc is a project that I have been following since it won the mashup competition of Google Maps Spain in 2006. After a redesign at the beginning of this year that helped it gain considerably in traffic, now comes the definitive support for this project as it becomes a part of the information layer available on Google Earth.

Jordi Ramot tells me that the increase in traffic on an international level is an important one and that the moment has arrived to give full dedication to this project. Wikiloc offers its users an application with which to manage their GPS routes and place them on Google maps.

I don’t know if Wikiloc will get the level of support from Google similar to the support received by Panoramio, but I do believe that this news is very relevant for the project, mostly for the repercussion it means on an international level.

Seen in Tecnomaps.

My friends of ASPgems have launched the community of professionals Befreelance with the incentive that the people who register will be able to earn money for using certain tools that the application offers.

The model is the same as Beruby but applied to a particular sector of web users, something that makes a lot of sense for specializing and the sector that they have selected could go on to make a great use of certain online tools.

I liked especially the integration that they have done of tools for managing SME (small and mid-sized enterprises) and freelance professionals developed by ASPgems (Facturagem, Gastosgem, Listagem, …) (literally named after Bills, Expenses and Lists). I also like the direct access from this web where the freelancer could have access to his/her favourite web applications and besides can make the professional CV accesible to his/her clients. That gives a lot of potential to Befreelance.

The section of the curriculums of freelancers is called BeCV and as the users go on registering, it could form an interesting directory to turn to in search of qualified professionals. I have already registered myself, you can see my personal page here.