Tripline Blog

I had the opportunity to do an interview for the technology segment of the KTLA Morning News here in LA. Check out the video below (Tripline segment is the last 30 seconds).

Hi folks. We just released two cool new features today: sign in using your email address and an embeddable place list for your maps.

Sign in with your email address

We noticed in our analytics that quite a few people were using the “I forgot my username” link when signing in, so we now allow you to log in using your email address OR your username.  It’s pretty simple: just enter the email address on your Tripline account instead of your Tripline username in the first field on the sign in form.

Embeddable place lists

You can now embed the list of places from any of your public maps on your blog or website.  You can choose to embed the map player as well if you want.  Just click the [Share] button on the map page and grab the Place List embed code.

A few things to note:

1. We set the default width of the Place List iframe to 600px.  This is to accomodate photo display.  You can set the width narrower if you choose, but when viewers open up photos in the list, the photos will appear cropped.  If you don’t have photos, there’s nothing to worry about.
2. The default height of the iframe is 1000px.  One of the annoying things about iframes is that there’s no reliable way to automatically determine the height, so if your list is longer than 1000px, you’ll get scroll bars.  You can always adjust the height of the iframe manually.
3. The photoviewer is anchored to the left side of the frame (as opposed to being centered). This makes the viewing experience a bit weird when you have different sized photos, but we had to do it this way to ensure the viewer was on the screen, especially if you’ve scrolled down to a place lower in the list. Not perfect, but still pretty good.

Here’s an example from the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere:

Pretty cool huh? We hope you enjoy these updates. As usual, send an email to support@tripline.net if you have any questions.

– Byron

Hi folks, we just launched a new release with a bunch of new  social features that many of you have been asking for, along with some additional updates and bug fixes. Here’s the rundown:

Add Map Followers

You can now add people to your maps as followers.  This will allow them to access your map if it’s private, and they’ll also get a notification by email when you comment on the map or check in on Tripline mobile.  To add people as followers, click on the [add people] button on the map page, enter the name of the people you want to add and designate them as followers.

This new feature allows you to keep your map private while you’re on the road but still keep close friends and family updated.  Now, when your flight lands, just check in once on Tripline mobile and all your followers will get an email right away. And, if you’ve made a change to your travel plans and want to let your followers know, just comment on the map page and they’ll be notified as well.

You can also use this feature to follow other people’s maps that you’re interested in.  Just click [follow this map] on the map page and you’ll be added as a follower.

One thing to note when you invite Facebook friends either as travelers or followers.  Because Facebook doesn’t provide the ability to send messages to friends behind the scenes (to prevent spamming), when you invite a Facebook friend to join a Tripline map, we pop a Send dialog that will allow you to message your friends directly.  Facebook only allows one friend to be pre-populated in the to: field of the message dialog, so if you’ve invited more than one person from Facebook, you’ll need to enter their names again (we pre-populate the first one).  Sorry, but there’s no way around this presently given Facebook’s API limitations.  They are planning a new messaging service soon, so perhaps this workaround will go away soon.

Waypoint Comments

You can now comment on individual waypoints in a map.  Just click the speech bubble icon to the right of the waypoint title and a comment entry field will open up.

Post Tripline Checkins To Facebook & Twitter

There’s a new option on your account page that you can use to enable posting of your Tripline checkins to Facebook and/or Twitter.  If you choose to post your checkins to Facebook, a notification will be posted into your Facebook feed when you check in on any map that has a visibility of “public” or “friends”.  If you enable posting of Tripline checkins to Twitter, a notification will be posted into your Twitter timeline when you check in on any map that has a visibility of “public”.  No notifications will be posted anywhere when you checkin on private maps.  To enable these options, click on [settings] in the Tripline header.

Import Facebook Checkins

You can now create a map by importing your Facebook checkins.  Once you’ve connected your Facebook account to Tripline, click on [create a map] in the header and you’ll see the option to create a map from your Facebook checkins on the right side of the page.  One note: For technical reasons we’ve limited this to your most recent 100 Facebook checkins.  We’ll open up full history as soon as possible.

Sharing Options On The Map Page

We’ve added some additional sharing options on the map page, including iframe embed code, and an option to embed a thumbnail image that links to your map page (which is a good option if your blogging platform doesn’t allow flash embeds – like free blogs hosted on wordpress.com).  There’s a new share button on the map page that you can use to access these new items.

Maps On Your Profile Page

There are now three different maps available for your profile page:

1. Places I’ve Been – shows all waypoints from your public maps + waypoints from your maps visible to friends when a friend is viewing your page + all waypoints from all of your trips when you’re viewing your own page
2. Places I’m Following – shows any place that you’re following
3. My Maps – shows all of your public maps + maps visible to friends when a friend is viewing your page + all of your maps when you’re viewing your own page

A few things to note about your profile page maps

• You may notice some waypoints displayed on the Places I’ve Been view that you’ve already removed from one of your maps.  To remove those old points, just edit each of your maps and save them. The old points will be removed.
• You can choose which map you want to display by default.  Just click on [settings] in the header and scroll down to the Profile Map option under your bio.
• If you want to see the public view of your own page, there’s a public view link underneath your stats on your profile page to see the public view.
• For the My Maps option,  the points displayed are located at the place you’ve specified as the Main Location of the map, or the calculated centerpoint of the map if your map’s main location is blank.  You can change the Main Location of the map in the editor on the map page.

Add Places Using Lat/Lng Coordinates

You can now enter lat/long coordinates in the editor to create a new waypoint.  Just select the geocoder option in the [add places] section of the editor and enter decimal coordinates in the typical lat,lng format:  37.235, -115.811111  If the geocoder finds a real-world address for those coordinates, it will be displayed.  Otherwise, it will display the entered coordinates as the place title and you can add that as a waypoint.

A few other notes

We haven’t seen too much uptake on the Question & Answer functionality we deployed a few months ago, but we decided to leave it on the site while we make some adjustments to how it works.  Stay tuned for updates.

We know a lot of you have asked for us to implement “follow roads” in the map editor.  That’s in progress and we hope to make it available for you soon.  We know it’s a much-needed feature, and we want to make sure we do it right.

We’ve also fixed a bunch of bugs, made some performance improvements and adjusted some design elements to improve the experience.   If you have any issues, you can email support@tripline.net with questions.

Enjoy!

– Byron

April, May and June of 2011 saw some of the most severe tornados in recent memory. Beginning with the F4 tornado that hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama on April 27, followed closely by the massively destructive tornado in Joplin, Missouri, and most recently the Springfield-Monson tornado in my home state of Massachusetts. All in all, these storms killed hundreds of people, caused catastrophic damage to thousands of homes and are likely to leave a massive impact on the affected communities for years to come.

Tripline user NewsMappers created tracks for each of these storms as news reports came in, and continued to update the maps as details emerged, including matching the track with the official NOAA/NWS reports when they were made available in the weeks following the storms. It’s a great example of using Tripline to create location-based content.

In total, the maps have been viewed more than 80,000 times, with the map from the Joplin Tornado receiving more than 60,000 views. Two Tripline users also used our new Q&A feature to ask about specific areas of damage in Joplin. You can see these on the Joplin Tornado topic page. We’re very glad that this new functionality was helpful.

Lastly, while we’re happy to have more people on Tripline, given the tragic nature of these events, we decided to use the promotional space on the map page that’s usually reserved for advertising to provide highly visible links to the Red Cross donation sites. We hope we were able to generate at least some additional assistance.

If you haven’t already, please go to the American Red Cross site and make a donation. Even though the media attention has faded, the need for donations is still there, so please do what you can.

– Byron

Originally from Ireland, Oonagh Shiel is a journalist, travel expert and the most tenured member of the Cheapflights.com content team. A mother of three, Oonagh writes with first hand authority about travel trends and top destinations as well as the challenges of traveling with children. She was kind enough to answer some travel related questions we thought Tripline users might find interesting.

What are the main differences you see between European travelers and American travelers?

European travelers generally have the luxury of more travel time. They also live in closer proximity to other countries and other cultures and, thanks to the European Union, can travel with minimal hassle across neighboring borders. In the US, a surprisingly large percentage of the population does not hold a passport. In a country as vast and diverse as the US, many feel there is plenty to see and do without having to clear Customs. So, traditionally, the travel profile of an European vs. an American has been rather different.

Do you see a shift in the travel habits of either region. Is either one moving in a different direction or becoming more or less alike?

Both are spreading their wings more. The last couple of years has created a breed of value-based travelers who will go further to get a better return on their money and time. In Europe, we saw an upswing in travel to the Middle East and the eastern end of Europe last year when people were looking to to get outside the pricey Eurozone. Western Europe is now seeing growing attention again as well as savvy travelers are recognizing that economic bailouts have driven down travel costs. In the US, travelers are willing to fly a little further to get more for their money. South America is an emerging destination for winter sun. Our Rising Stars Reports, which tracked emerging hot spots, also showed that people are going deeper into “exotic” countries, meaning they don’t just go to Rio de Janeiro when hitting Brazil but rather Cuiaba or Iguassu Falls. Beijing, China, is starting to be a draw but so are Shenyang and Fuzhou.

In your experience how has the global recession affected each of these travel groups?

We see people who felt the pain when their vacation was taken away or curtailed for a year or two and are more adamant than ever about travel. They tie it to points of passion.  Voluntourism is a major trend. So are trips tied to cooking classes or wine tasting or health and fitness goals. Many people are drawn to “green” destinations. They want travel with a purpose. And, as we mentioned above, they are savvy, value shoppers who will try new things or new places to get the most out of a trip.

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