Google Earth and a plan for San Francisco job growth

I don’t know the details of Ed Lee’s political agenda, and that information is irrelevant for this post, but he’s recently used Google Earth in a very creative way. In one of his recent TV ads, Ed made great use of Google Earth to help show off his plan for creating new jobs across the San Francisco area.

Details on how the video was created aren’t available, but it appears that they simply took some carefully-planned Google Earth footage and then added all of the labels and highlights in a video editing suite like Final Cut Pro. As such, no KML or tour are available.

Interestingly, they apparently chose to shoot the footage with the 3D Tree layer turned off, or else they created the video prior to last November when 3D trees were unveiled in San Francisco. For example, the park shown at the 0:20 mark of the video looks much better with the tree layer enabled:

ed-lee.jpg

That said, it’s an excellent way to show off this kind of information in a quick commercial. The high altitude between stops helps to show users where they are, and the solid 3D coverage in the San Francisco area really helps it come to life.

(via Politico)

How to use Google Earth as a source of geocoding!

I would like to share with you simple hint – How to use Google Earth as a geocoding tool.
You should have list with addresses and names of the points in Microsoft Exel file.


.KML format have couple of structures and one of them is:

[php]
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.1">
<Document>
<Folder>
<name>
</name>
<Placemark>
<name>
</name>
<visibility>0</visibility>
<address><![CDATA[ ]]></address>
</Placemark>
</Folder>
</Document>
</kml>
[/php]

So we should take the name of the point and the address and we are putting it in this frame structure.
To do this we have to create simple macro which will create .KML file with the names and the addresses from our Microsoft Excel file.

[php]
Sub generateKML()
‘
‘ GenerateKML Macro
‘ Macro recorded 27/02/2010 by ipt
‘

‘ Set file details
Set filePath = [File_details!C2]

‘ Set document name
Set docName = [File_details!C3]

Open filePath For Output As #1

‘Write header to file
outputText = [File_details!C5] & docName & [File_details!C6]
Print #1, outputText

‘Start to loop through stations
For Each cell In [Data!A2.A50001]

pmName = cell.Offset(0, 0)
pmAddress = cell.Offset(0, 1)

If pmName = "" Then
Exit For
End If

‘Create a placemark
outputText = [File_details!C8] & pmName & [File_details!C9] & pmAddress & [File_details!C10]
Print #1, outputText

Next

‘Write footer to file
outputText = [File_details!C12]
Print #1, outputText

Close #1

‘
End Sub
[/php]

We are creating two sheets – Sheet “data” – is where we have to paste the names and the addresses
The second Sheet is called “File_Details” and in this sheet we should describe the structure of the .KML file.
We are describing output file name and directory also.
The macro will Loop thru the record set from “Data” Sheet and it should Save data as .KML file.
When you open the file with Google Earth it will start geocoding. For approximately 2500 POI – raw addresses with removed fullstops it took 30 minutes to geocode
1875 POI’s

To get the geocoded data you have save your file as .KML from Google Earth in specific directory.
After that you opening saved file with Microsoft Excel.
Microsoft Excel will ask you to open this file as an .xml table(picture)

And opening the file you should see something like:


Copy POI and coordinates and bring them back in Microsoft Excel by “Paste special as value”.

Google Plus: Monetizing games

Kabam was part of the initial launch of Google+ Games with two game titles, Dragons of Atlantis and Edgeworld, and we recently added Global Warfare. For these games, we integrated Google In-App Payments and we’re pleased with our games’ monetization to date. There are a couple things we learned along the way that we’re happy to share with the community.

Integrating In-App Payments

Integrating In-App Payments in our games was very simple, especially when compared to other payment platforms. There is excellent documentation available, complete with examples for each step of the purchase flow. We also used open-source libraries such as ruby-jwt to generate the tokens required for each purchase option.

We designed our games and purchase pages around the expectation of instant feedback, making sure to incorporate page loads or refreshes wherever possible. For example, in Edgeworld, a player attacking an enemy base can load the list of Platinum options instantly, without waiting for the list of payment options to load. After their Platinum purchase, the player is immediately brought back to the game, with their new currency and items waiting for them.

Pro tip: strive to reduce purchaser friction

One of the keys to maximizing revenue is to remove as much friction as possible from the purchase flow, making sure as many people as possible get from one step of the flow to the next. Many payment platforms send players to their own website and multi-page checkout flow. The Google In-App Payments approach allows us to keep players on our game page for the entire flow, making sure we can manage more of the process and reduce abandonment.

Additionally, the player’s credit card information is stored securely, so once a player has made a purchase anywhere using In-App Payments, their information is available for future purchases without additional data entry. Finally, JavaScript callbacks provided by In-App Payments allow us to show the effects of the purchase immediately, improving customer satisfaction.