Drupal, Plazes, GMap Module and some Speculations.
Already two days I bear in mind an idea of creating a kind of a social network that would support GEO services. I have already introduced the German startup Plazes. What I don’t really like about this project is that for me as a consumer this service is too special. If I don’t want to use its main feature, so to deal with my current location, to define new places in the taxonomy etc. (and that’t not quite obvious, one should take a time to find out how this stuff works) Plazes platform is for me useless. To my opinion the “sociality”, so the interaction between users, the easy way to get to know each other should have the higher priority. I accept the GEO functionality as the feature, that can entertain the visitors. But in no way as the main component around which the community grows.
Looking through the modules for Drupal I found there a one, which is called Plazes. It’s not actually what makes me happy. This module connects you to the original Plazes site and gives back the information about users who are registered there. This is not that comfortable for the visitors of YOUR site, because first of all they have to deal with their Plazes account. And secondly why must they visit your site if they use already another service? What I’m thinking of, is the writing of the own simple module, that will allow users to define the places they are at on your website. It must be not difficult, just a simple database table, where the users ids are mapped to the places.
Drupal offers also a GMap module. According to the description it must show on the map the position of the given coordinates. It’s actually a gmap API that is embedded into Drupal engine. Unfortunately all the demo website don’t show the maps. The devoloper says that it must lie on the recent changes in the APIs. So if I’d tend to use google fascilities, I’ll have to look at the APIs myself.
Thus with the combination of the potential module and Google API one can realize funny features for the visitors of the potential community. Of course the idea is not ripe enough and I have to think about how to bring the sociality to the front. And what is more important is whether I find the time for the realization of my ambitions. Let’s see. If you have some ideas to this topic or just the mood to speculation about what could be if… , you are welcome!