Site profile: whatscloseto.me

Jun 12, 2012 archived-projects business misc-web

This post is more than 18 months old. Since technology changes too rapidly, this content may be out of date (but that's not always the case). Please remember to verify any technical or programming information with the current release.

Goal: Clever named site that shows local establishments close to your location. Was based on Google Ip location services. The thought was just for people to think ‘whats close to me’ and type that up.

Technology

Clean interface. The design was made to make the map the focal point. Colors were matched in shades - there were basically just two colors in the whole design.

As with most of my projects, I used deflate and far out expiration dates. In this case I also removed all the whitespace from the HTML as well. I even packed the javascript!

The geolocation was retrieved from the Google Maps api v2. I’m assuming by now they must have better options. The rest was just simple Google Search Maps api to retrieve the results in that location- and then plot them on the map.

Lessons learned

Not enough content so it didn’t become that indexed and popular.

No monetization options built in - plus the result list LOOKS like google ads - so most people don’t view it.

Nowadays, Google does this good enough on its own - I would need more features than just this - plus not being able to change your location sucks. (Even though I’m in Milwaukee, the screenshots will show I’m in the big MO).