CellMap - connecting people, places, and events

Launch Party 9 - The Big Announcement - ConQuer Mobile and CellMap MERGE!

2010-06-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

We had a blast last night at Launch Party 9! It was very well organized, there were alot of really cool people in attendance and world class companies launching their new products.

So.... if you weren't there, the big announcement is that ConQuer Mobile and CellMap are merging to become ConQuer Mobile! Aaron Hilton is our our super amazingly awesome CTO and Angela Robert is CEO.

It feels really great for all of us and we are excited about the future!

We've got alot of work moving forward to merge our identities and hope to complete the transition by the end of August. You can follow us on twitter www.twitter.com/conquermobile to stay in the know. We've also created a Facebook Fan page - Search for ConQuer Mobile, so please become a fan.

Thank you to all that stopped by our booth!

The response was awesome and people loved CellTouch - Deliciously Simple App Creation! Visit www.celltouch.ca for more information.

Thank you to Karen Henrich who did a small screening of a very sexy video that will be launched soon! I can't wait to share the video.

Launch Party 9

2010-06-17T14:51:00.001-07:00

We are gearing up to head to Launch Party 9 tonight. The CellTouch team will be in attendance, excited to talk about CellTouch Platform which we will be demoing live. You can play with the sample app we created for the event as part of our Launch Party submission.

Please vote for our entry and leave comments for our submission!

A big thank you to Knowlton Thomas for the interview on TechVibes! Tweet and post it to Facebook!

**Stay tuned our BIG announcement to come this evening!

**Watch for a very special video that will hopefully be playing on the big TV that Aaron is bringing courtesy of our partner Karen Henrich of ChicWalks Media.

We hope to see you out this evening.

Another F5 Expo update!

2010-04-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

Global TV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFKOGfTaTL8

Out of the dozens of products and services exhibited at F5 Expo on April 7, Global TV thought ChicWalks was a sexy technology contender and featured it prominently in their 6 o'clock news story with Angela, our developer from ConQuer Mobile! We were demoing our chic digital creation on the most fashionable of devices, the iPad. Enjoy our Global TV clip shot "bootleg-style!"

Novus TV: http://www.youtube.com/user/chicwalks#p/a/f/0/0iVRxerZHXw Angela Robert from ConQuer Mobile demos the ChicWalks app on the super stylish iPad!

CellMap @ F5 Expo, Vancouver

2010-04-13T16:34:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone!

Some exciting news for us here at CellMap. As part of our ramp-up to getting the CellTouch platform out to the people, CellMap participated on Wednesday, April 7th in the F5 Expo, which was hosted here in Vancouver.

For those of you who are not familiar with the F5 Expo, it is a trade show meant to jump start businesses into “the know” on future trends within the online space. The event was packed with interactive exhibits, presentations, and seminars. There was also a lot of collaboration and idea sharing amongst the exhibitors and the crowds.

By noon, the convention centre was packed, and people that were interested in mobile app development seemed to be very receptive of our CellTouch Platform. On hand, we also had two brand new iPads that we used to show-off a couple of apps built with the CellTouch platform. Our iPads worked like a charm; they were interactive, ran the CellTouch apps flawlessly, and their larger screens helped when presenting to more than one person. They also turned-out to be the perfect lure to cast amidst the streams of tech-hungry attendees.

All in all, it was a good day, CelTouch was received well and with lots of energy. Thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth, and to our online audience for your continued support. Keep checking back for news and updates.

Kathy seen here demoing ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping App, on the iPad.

ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping App, was produced by ConQuer Mobile, using the CellTouch Platform.

CellMap and ChicWalks Vancouver App – Update!

2010-02-18T16:05:00.000-08:00

WOW! Exciting News! We at CellMap in conjunction with ConQuer Mobile and ChicWalks.com are super excited to let the world know that the ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping iPhone App has been featured on the US, CA, BR and MX iTunes App Store, front and centre under the New & Noteworthy section.

Because of this exposure and timing with the Olympics, ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping app has literally been thrust over night into 6th place overall for top free lifestyle app downloads on the CA iTunes App Store!

ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping app was built using our CellTouch app builder platform; was released just in time for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and has received some impressive media coverage. (See our Jan. 05 posting for more details, or go directly to Chicwalks.com PR page. )

As we inch ever closer to our official CellTouch App builder platform launch, we can tell you some new features we've integrated include: our Push Notification System, Proximity Alert System and Favourites Functions. You will be able to check-out these latest features in action when we release the latest version update for ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping app.

Haven't downloaded this app for your iPhone yet? Click Here.

Not on an iPhone? No problem, enter www.bit.ly/chicwalks into your smart phone's browser, and you're there.

Thank-you everyone for your continued support and keep checking back for news and updates.

CellMap and CellTouch Freebies

2010-02-16T13:34:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone,

In our build-up to our CellTouch technology platform release, we have been busy researching and compiling resources in regards to mobile device application design. We have a couple of PDF documents we'd like to put out there that sum up some of this compilation. Our intention is to share some of the leg-work we have already done with those who are interested in similar endeavours. At the same time, if you have relative information or sources of info that you'd like to share, by all means we'd love to see it!

*PLEASE NOTE: The materials supplied are based from our own research and pertain to particular mobile device app design. Our research is drawn from many sources, some which may or may not have been cited.

The first doc outlines screen dimensions shared by popular mobile device models. This doc is a good quick reference guide to help you in deciding your app content layout based on your targeted mobile device users. Download PDF

The second doc is a short outline of design tips pertaining to mobile devices for those who may not be familiar with basic design principles. If you feel something was left out or have materials of similar nature that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear about it. Download PDF

Enjoy!

CellMap and ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping iPhone App!

2010-01-05T14:55:00.000-08:00

In partnership with ChicWalks.com and ConQuer Mobile, we launched ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping app on Dec. 17th, and had it approved from Apple within a week!

ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping app delivers 9 walks (including one of Whistler/Blackcomb), that offers GPS-based tours and over 1,000 shops that include fashion, jewelry, shoes, cosmetics, home decor, eating and drinking venues. The app is also loaded with relevant information, and features redeemable coupons from sponsor vendors that every discerning fashionista will find highly desirable.

Released just in time for the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping has received some impressive media coverage.

Watch the news story CTV News did, and read-up on what BCBusiness had to say about the app.

You can download the app directly from iTunes Store by following this link.

You can also see a demo of it on YouTube.

ChicWalks Vancouver Shopping was the first app developed using CellMap's CellTouch 1.0 platform.

Check-out ChicWalks.com directly, or for more in-depth coverage on ChickWalks.com, click here.

Happy New Year – and its going to be a good one!

2010-01-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

First off, we at CellMap hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to 2010 with as much anticipation as we are!

2010 is lining-up to be an exciting year. Not only are we continuing with our partnerships with our '09 clients, but we are gearing-up to officially launch our pet project, CellTouch. We have been alluding to our CellTouch platform release all autumn long and are in the process of detailing the finishing touches to CellTouch 1.0.

CellTouch is our web-based iPhone app building platform. The CellTouch platform and its virtual iPhone simulator allows the user to drag and drop functional, customizable widgets into their would-be app. The user can build menus, info pages, add links, phone numbers, detailed map location markers, clickable web URLS, as well as upload customized photos and graphics, just to name a few.

Since CellTouch powered iPhone apps are built via web, it allows us to offer our clients the ability to access, change and update their app anytime, giving autonomy to the client, and useful realtime updates to the iPhone app users. It being a true app, it works while connected to a network or offline, saving app users potential roaming charges.

CellTouch's location marker abilities, easy-to-use customizable autonomous building features, and self-updating abilities make CellTouch the perfect iPhone app platform for any app which may be event, location, time and/or promotions based.

Stay tuned for our official launch announcement!

CellMap and My Nearest!

2009-10-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

Another iPhone app courtesy of Canpages, and a must have, is “My Nearest.”

“My Nearest” works anywhere in Canada. Essentially it is a customizable 411 directory for any sort of business within a 10 km. radius of your location. Feeling hungry? Search under the restaurants category, and “My Nearest” will list all the restaurants starting with the closest one first. Of course you can pull the business’ information up, add to your favorites list, and find directions. Need cash? “My Nearest” has an ATM category – in fact; “My Nearest” comes with 30 preloaded categories, but don’t stop there, you can create your own as well.

CellMap is proud to have been involved in the development of “My Nearest,” and proud to point out it ranked as the number #1 navigation app on iTunes Store.

It’s free and you can download it from here.

CellMap and Canpages

2009-10-08T17:34:00.000-07:00

As you may recall, CellMap has been working with Canpages for several months now. We are proud to announce our involvement with their speech driven iPhone app.

The Canpages App hit #1 on iTunes download list.

The Canpages app is a voice powered local business and residential search application for Canada. In addition to featuring voice search, it also offers: automatic 'nearby' search, maps and get directions, ability to save details to your contact list, live traffic cameras for travel info, reverse search by phone number, along with many other features.

Extremely convenient, practical, and it’s free! A must download from the iTunes Store.

Mo Discovers Stanley Park – iPhone App

2009-10-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

Mo Discovers Stanley Park is an interactive tour guide to Vancouver’s Stanley Park, for the iPhone.

Using your phone's GPS, let Mo, the mountain marmot and friends lead you on a discovery of beautiful Stanley Park, in the heart of Vancouver, BC. Along the way, tour hosts provide insider information through videos on a park map, which guides you through nature trails, wetlands, beaches, and the infamous Seawall path.

If you live in or around the Vancouver area, or plan on visiting one day, this app is fun for everyone and its free to download from iTunes Store.

We Made the News!

2009-10-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

In August, Wavefront hosted a grand opening showcase of their facilities. The event included some high profile players and a lot of press coverage. Our Aaron Hilton was in on the action and even quoted in the coverage.

If you’d like to read-up on the articles you can find them here:

The Vancouver Sun Newspaper

The Province Newspaper

Our Office Has Moved to WaveFront

2009-10-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well, in part of getting current with all the exciting things happening around CellMap, I think we first should let everyone know about our new office location at Wavefront.

Wavefront is a commercialization centre accelerating the growth of British Columbia's growing cluster of more than 1,000 wireless and new media developer companies. Wavefront provides emerging companies with a suite of WaveGuide™ training, mobile industry advisory, testing and incubation services that facilitate commercial engagement with mobile network operators and enterprise companies around the world.

You can learn more about Wavefront at their website: www.wavefrontac.com.

We’re Back!

2009-10-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

Alright... we know it’s been a while since we’ve last posted our going-ons around CellMap, so we are pleased to update our blog in an effort to get everyone up to speed.

Lot’s of things have happened for CellMap since our last blog entry. New office location, new projects, and some pretty exciting projects currently in development.

Here are some announcements we’re pretty proud of, and be sure to stay tuned for new bulletins in the near future.

Google Latitude

2009-02-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Google has been cranking out some pretty amazing new products. Check out "Google Latitude" to keep tabs on friends and family while out and about. With good privacy controls this is a fantastic utility. iPhone friendly version coming soon.

Also have a look at Google Earth 5.0 for some neat underwater data and 3D buildings of Vancouver.

Keep at it Google!!
- Aaron.

Google LatLong: Vancouver in 3D

2009-01-28T20:14:00.000-08:00

Google just loaded up a 3D building layer of Vancouver into Google Earth.

Way cool guys!

Google LatLong: Vancouver in 3D

Presentation at MoMoVan

2009-01-10T09:39:00.001-08:00

Over the last seven months, I've had a the great pleasure to build an iPhone application for Canpages. This all came about from meeting Olivier Vincent at Mobile Mondays Vancouver, a WINBC event that happens every first monday of the month.

Here's a video produced by Bruce Sharpe, of myself recounting our experience:
http://brucesharpe.blogspot.com/2008/12/aaron-hilton-founder-and-cto-of-cellmap.html

- Aaron.

Canpages Live on iPhone App Store

2009-01-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

We've been pretty quiet these past few months.

Why pray tell? We were off building a major application for our client Canpages. This was a HUGE deal for us! Getting an opportunity to build the iphone software infrastructure we need for CellMap on iPhone, paid, and jump-started with wicked tools on Canpage's servers. It's been a real joy working for Olivier and David over at Canpages. This is just the begining. We've scheduled in some pretty cool new technology developments in the near future.

Check out Canpages on the App Store

- Aaron

WUGC CellMap: The Power of Top Level Links

2008-08-06T17:55:00.001-07:00

More on the history of the WUGC CellMap.

When we first built the WUGC CellMap, the WUGC organizers were too swamped to link it (I'm a volunteer for Worlds, and I've seen how much work was put into this). So, I wondered: how can we promote this map so people can download it? I know it's something that will be extremely useful, especially for the international visitors that will be attending Worlds.

Then, I saw that the latest forum postings are shown as top level links, right on the navigation pane on the left. This is a great way to get people to participate in the forums, as all the latest messages are shown on every page (since it's part of the nav pane).

So, I made a post in the forum, and waited and see.

Now, I put the CellMap up in the afternoon of July 30. I didn't know what kind of traffic we would have. It was a bit of a "wait and see" approach, but trying to harness the top-level link.

And was it ever powerful.

Without any other type of advertising (other than its prime location), we had over 100 hits in a day!

I wondered how much traction it would've gotten if it was under the venue/competition sub pages, and I have a feeling that it would not get nearly as many. I didn't know whether the webmaster would have enough time to put it under there, so I made an effort to keep the link on the front page. I didn't want to make unnecessary bumps, since that's just bad etiquette. Thus, I made a concerted effort to have useful info and tangible updates to keep it near the top. I updated the schedule, revamped the download page (MUCH more user friendly now).

When it finally made its way officially onto the Venues and Competition pages, I stopped posting so we can see how much that would affect traffic. Interestingly, it didn't dent traffic too much (but it DID go down). That could mean a variety of things, and I have two hypotheses.

One, is that word of mouth has taken place. Some people are running around with a CellMap, and are showing it off. (We've had good feed back right on the forum).
Two, is that people are purpose driven. If someone is looking at the venues, and comes across a link for CellMap, they'll be intrigued, and check it out. If the visitor isn't looking for a CellMap, having a top level link won't attract them.

Ultimately, having it at the top level did make a difference, but only initially. Even after the link is officially on the subpages, I made a final post on the forum, so it stuck around on the main page for a bit more. Traffic didn't go back up. That could mean that people who are inclined to check it out has already done so, and the "top level-ness" was no longer as important as issue.

If you have any thoughts, feel free to drop us a line!

- Wayne

WUGC CellMap: Dissected

2008-08-06T17:41:00.000-07:00

As an avid Ultimate player, it was with great pleasure that we are providing the WFDF 2008 World Ultimate and Guts Championships (that's a mouthful) CellMap. This map really taxed our abilities, both artistic and taxonomical.

First off, the map images out there of UBC (the venue) are so-so at best. Some of their resolution were not high enough, and others, while of sufficient clarity, had huge amounts of clutter (which is another knock against static maps like paper, pdf, images, etc.). We had to do a lot of cleaning up in order to reduce the extra information down to a minimum. It is important to only show the information that is useful for navigation, and hide/delete the rest. Like most things in life, the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of the time, you only need 20% of the stuff. It's even MORE important for this map, since the target audience likely won't care about every single building at UBC, and really only need the major ones.

Take a look at the original compared with the cleaned-up versions:

Original

Cleaned Up

Most of the extra text is taken out, not only because the CellMap software can store the building names separately, but much more to keep the image clean. WUGC specific coloring and buildings have been added, to give the final map much more punch to guide the eyes to the areas of importance.

Next is the taxonomy. The directory needs to show both WUGC items, and UBC items. We had to come up with a categorical structure that best represents this. I'm a guy who likes things sorted, so that was an important task that we had to do.

Now, if you've played with CellMap before, you'll know that we have an Events Listing feature built in. It shows a list of events, and can show you on the map where it is. But what if there are HUNDREDS of events? Since Worlds has 6 divisions (plus Guts), and each division has an average of 16 countries, that's a LOT of events. Our current system has a flat list (don't worry, we're revamping it ;) ), which makes showing all of this unfeasible. You really don't want to scroll 329 times just to see when Canada is playing Japan on Friday.

So, what to do that's within the realms of our current state of technology?

We decided to Use the Map.

As in, build a schedule in the map image. We put a nice table of the days and divisions on the map image, and in each one's details (ie. 8/6, Open) is the full list of games for that day. This also allows up to put that in the Directory, so people can quickly find the games.

With that, we've built the most comprehensive events CellMap to date!

- Wayne

Make Wireless Better

2008-07-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's clear we need better wireless service in Canada.

Check out this Petition for Bill C-555, which aims to make wireless carriers behave themselves.

What I don't understand is how Rogers, Bell, and Telus believe they are actually making a better deal for themselves. It's common sense that confusing billing means lower adoption. Lower adoption means less overall revenue.

The carriers are definitely making good revenue, but it could be so much better for everybody. Lower tech support costs, happier customers, and significantly more uptake.

There's potential, but it seems to be blocked by a combination of greed and fear. Fear that they'll lose a massive chunk of revenue, and the repercussion by their shareholders. I guess when your company gets so large it becomes terrifying to make a bold entrepreneurial moves.

Village of Pemberton Map

2008-07-02T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Pemberton Music Festival will be kicking off fairly soon. It is scheduled for July 25-27 and should make some big waves out here on the coast (even though its in the Interior of BC). With names like NIN, Jay-Z, Coldplay, The Flaming Lips, and many many others it should be great time for all.

CellMap has been working with the Chamber of Commerce in putting together a map of the Village of Pemberton. The map has gas stations, a pharmacy, food, and retail stores worth noting in case you need anything you forgot at home.

Check out the map at:

Village of Pemberton on CellMap

Let us know if there's anything we forgot or something you want to see on it. We hope this makes life easier for all visitors to Pemberton.

Michael

Are Early Exits a good thing?

2008-06-18T23:01:00.001-07:00

The following is my follow-up take on the negative aspects of "early exits" as talked about on this blog post by Basil Peters:
---------
The excitement around "Early exits" seems like confusion about cause and effect.

This "built to flip" mentality was proven initially very successful in the dot-com explosion, but it seemed to be more like the cresting of the wave. Once large corps began to jump on the technological shifts, they over spent, and start-ups were awesomely successful. At first.

The business models were being engineered to flip. Nobody was crazy, but everyone were modelling their plans on inflated metrics, and expectations. We all thought an ecosystem of larger companies would eat us up, make billions on ads, or IPO. What seemed like sound business models, collapsed, and worse, cascaded.

Now in 2008, we're seeing the same pattern. A healthy technology shift, powered by social networks, and mobile LBS technologies. Plenty of big investors are elated about this stuff, which is fuelling hundreds of start-ups entrepreneurs to build cool facebook apps or mobile LBS services. But, very few start-ups are actually planning a strong value chain to the dollar, and too many are relying on getting bought by Google.

I personally hate the "Early Exit" from an innovator's stand-point. The whole concept is revolting. It's not respecting my passion to realize a bigger picture. Building to flip, is building another twitter.

If investors really wanted to reduce their risks, it's time we talk about smaller multiples, with sound opportunity to build bigger. Embrace the creative mind, and lets make sure we've got the foundation to scale up big and keep the visionary on-board.

Have a look at this great video of David Heinemeier Hansson (author of Ruby on Rails) at Startup School '08 about addressing the Fortune 5,000,000 and creating a profitable start-up. He nails a lot of delusions on both the investors and entrepreneur perspectives. (Jump to 17:20)
----

Definitely check out the comments on Basil's post... There's some great other perspectives, both for and against. All of it brilliant.

Hope this puts some perspective out there, ;)
- Aaron.

One year after the jump

2008-06-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

The rule of thumb says it takes two years for a business to really get into full swing. It's been one year since I (Aaron) jumped to Vancouver and now I understand why it takes two. Much of our time has been spent learning and refining our product, adjusting our business plan, and building our contacts. Deploying a real-world product means solving everything from bottom to top, across the full spectrum of business, marketing, technical, customer, and end-user challenges.

Our proudest accomplishment was building a CellMap for a large event called VidFest. We got VIP passes, got promoted on their web and print materials, and won the PopVox award for Best Mobile Application.

We've been pretty busy building our company in creative ways. Our office is co-located with Kirby Floral, in exchange for some coaching and web development money. It's enabled Wayne and myself to meet regularly and accelerate development.

We have a new employee. Michael came onboard in February as a graphic and new-media designer. He continues to impress with a knack for sales and web development.

Speaking of sales, our funnel of customers is primed and ready to roll. We are starting to attract the attention of some high profile players too. Our partner Mapformation is including our service in with their base map design offering. In the next few months we'll see a steady revenue stream emerging from their customer base. This turns out to be a wonderful way for a cartographer to further establish their relationship with a customer. If a map design needs updating, there is a real motive to get the original design house to upgrade the CellMap while they're at it. And, we're on contract to build a little flash component. Michael's taking lead on that project.

Another significant customer is contracting us to do a large development project on the iPhone, which happens to align with our development goals. I'm taking point on this project, with Wayne's help on the UI design and mock-ups.

And finally, we've got client of a large organization with many locations around downtown Vancouver, in the late stages of approving a CellMap project and deploying it across their locations and promoting it like crazy. This is leveraging CellMap's latest support for GPS if you've got it, and remote updates to the map, delivered on request by the user.

Sorry I can't be more specific, but until these projects complete we have to keep details confidential.

We began May as our month to begin sales and really execute. I'm proud of our team, and what we've managed to do together. Just amazing work.

To summarize our run of publicity, we:

- Presented at Angel Forum

- Presented at Mobile Mondays in Vancouver

- Got published in VidFest print materials, and on their website.

- Demoed at Launch Party Vancouver 4

- Won the PopVox award for Best Mobile Application

- Won runner-up, honourable mention at the Pitchies with fundfindr.

- Presented at VanDev

- Got mentioned a dozen times on various blogs, (techVibes, fadeToPlay, rez2cool, etc.)

(Google Alerts is great for keeping track of this stuff!)

Some higher profile stuff is coming in the next few months, and we're pretty excited about where CellMap is going.

Until next time!

- Aaron.

Building for the Fortune 5,000,000

2008-06-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

Building CellMap for the last year has been an incredibly enlightening experience. I think David Heinemeier (author of Ruby on Rails) really captured the lessons learned over the past year. You can build a successful business sanely.

Check it out! Very cool perspective.

We beat Cancer! (on Google)

2008-06-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

A random thought. If you search for CellMap, we're at the top of the rankings. A little ways down is CellMap.org, that does cellular mapping for cancer.

So I guess we beat cancer.

On another note, we'll talk about the evolution of coming up with a company name an logo. It's more turbulent than one might imagine...

We were blogged!

2008-05-29T11:07:00.001-07:00

We got some blog coverage at "The Rez"! Read about it here:
http://rez2cool.blogspot.com/2008/05/vidfest-08-cellmap-getting-around.html

CellMap Wins Best Mobile Application at PopVox Awards!

2008-05-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

You like us, you really like us!

Yay! We won! Yes, yes, it was in a category of 2, but STILL! A win's a win.

To recap the night a bit, I'd have to say that it's my first "big" award show. I mean, I've been in high school award nights, and even university "fun" award nights, but this was something else.

When I first entered the "Great Northern Way Campus", I didn't think much of the venue. Yes, it looks pretty neat on the outside, but the first couple of hallways were like every other concrete university buildings.

Then, I entered "The Hangar". WOW. They really turned it into a gala. Lights were low, spinning colour lights were everywhere. There were caterers coming around with fancy hors d'oeuvres, and everyone was dressed up, geek chic style. (When I was at the VIDFEST's opening ceremonies at Vancouver Art Gallery, I was in a nice shirt and slacks. I felt a little out of place, since everyone there was in "geek/artist" type style. I made sure I fit in this time, with my new trademark-pending look. ;) )

There was a bit of mingling, but the event went on its way shortly thereafter. The PopVox Awards. Lots of presenters, lots of big sponsors like Microsoft and Bell. Every time an award was presented, I can't help but think how much this is like what you see on TV: there was a presenter, then "Here are the nominees", along with a video of their stuff. Even when the winners went up, some of them had a prepared list of "thank yous". (Hm... I wonder if Aaron prepared something. And how would the let-down feel if we didn't win, but still have prepared a speech?)

Anyway, as the night went on, I became more and more anxious. When our category came up - Best Mobile Application - my heart was definitely racing. Then, the winner: CellMap!

We went up to receive the award, and Aaron DID have a short list prepared. Michael and myself stood to the side, and only in retrospect did I realize that we should'ved crowded around the podium (think Oscar's, when the entire crew goes up for Best Picture). Ah well. As we left the stage, Kenton, the president of New Media BC, even said a few more words about CellMap! That's pretty awesome.

Afterwards, went to the back to get our pictures taken, and on to mingling! I found out how much carrying the the award is a great conversation piece. Met some cool people, even another UI guy, who works for EA. Raced on PGR4 on the 360, and had some food.

Speaking of UI, the had a buffet table for chow mein. This in of itself isn't anything crazy. They had the same food on both ends leading towards the middle, to allow more people going through. Still not the problem. The main issue was that the table was AGAINST THE WALL. This effectively reduces the number of people going through by HALF! If they moved it away from the wall, the line-ups would've been MUCH shorter.

Phew, there's my UI design rant.

Anyway, the rest of the night went great, met more people, and had more cool food. And, of course, winning an award is always nice! Hope to be back next year!

Oh, and it's cool to have other people blog about the event (TechVibes, Fade to Play). Thanks to Fade to Play for the pic!

Today's the Day!

2008-05-23T10:57:00.001-07:00

CellMap Inc. will be at VidFest's PopVox Awards Gala tonight. We are up for Best Mobile Application, so we got our fingers crossed. It should be an awesome experience mingling with some of the IT and creative industry's leaders and champions.

Should be another excellent night in Vancouver.

VIDFEST 2008 is using CellMap!

2008-05-20T01:25:00.000-07:00

VIDFEST (Vancouver International Digital Festival), May 21 - 24, has asked us to do a CellMap for them. We're the official mobile map provider for this event, and they've even listed us in the print program as well as on their event schedule page.

Be sure to check out the VIDFEST CellMap, which has the latest features - events listing and better BlackBerry support. Also look for Easter Eggs around the map! (Even if you're not going to VIDFEST, it's a great map of Granville Island.)

We'll see you there!

New Feature!

2008-05-10T11:48:00.001-07:00

We've been hard at work over the past couple of days putting together a new feature! (Well, Aaron's the main dev for this stuff. I tossed in UI thoughts, as always).

Check out some test CellMaps with this feature, and let us know what you think!
VIDFEST 2008 - look for Easter Eggs in this map!
http://test.cellmap.ca/details/vidfest08/

PAX 2007
http://test.cellmap.ca/details/pax07/

12 Days to Vote

2008-05-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

CellMap is entered in the Popvox Awards for Best Mobile Application.
Vote for us at: Popvox Awards

CellMap in Techvibes

2008-05-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

For the Angel Forum that happened only a few days ago, we got mentioned in Techvibes, along with several other up and coming start ups in the Vancouver area.

Check the article:

www.techvibes.com