Earthware Blog

Cathedral Lettings are the Durham specialists when it comes to letting residential property. Their vision is to use their local knowledge and expertise in the lettings market to ‘match good tenants with good properties’ and make the process as simple as possible for both the tenant and landlord. It is in striving to meet this vision that Cathedral Lettings have become the latest company to implement Earthware’s property mapping product.

So the story goes like this: Mark Havers, Director of Cathedral Lettings, had realised that many of the tenants searching for property with Cathedral Lettings were looking to move to the Durham area from all over the country and indeed the world and that they often had little knowledge of the locality. Having recognised this knowledge gap, Mark wanted to find a solution and ensure the service his lettings agency offered did make finding property in Durham really easy. He recognised that using interactive maps was a really visually engaging way to display the locality information many of his tenants wanted to know. Having shared this idea with Aspasia, they pointed Mark in our direction. Of this Mark says, “When Aspasia told me about Earthware’s interactive mapping I was immediately interested and as soon as I saw it in operation I was very interested indeed”.

EarthwareProperty was designed to be really simple to implement; once the client has chosen which default features they want for their maps we send them a step by step guide including all the necessary code for a seamless implementation of our maps into their website. Cathedral Lettings really appreciated how simple this is saying that “working with Earthware to make the whole thing happen has been very straightforward”.

Although the maps have only been live for a short time Mark is already getting great feedback: “We’ve only been live for a week, but the response so far from our clients has been very positive”. Cathedral Lettings have achieved their aim of using the latest mapping technology to bring a residential lettings search tool to life and impart locality information in a visually compelling way making finding residential property to let in Durham much simpler.

If you have a vision to use interactive mapping to differentiate your company and bring your products and service to life then please contact us.

At Earthware, we have believed for some time that Microsoft/Multimap has been disadvantaged vs. Google API which offers embedded maps with free transactions to small mapping clients. With this in mind, we thought we would draw your attention to Multimap’s recently launched embedded mapping product which sees them fighting back Google in offering mapping for free to low volume commercial users.

This new version of the Multimap API allows website owners to embed a customised map into their site taking advantage of Microsoft Virtual Earth’s aerial imagery: all it takes is a single line of HTML code.

The key features are as follows:

· Designed for use by small businesses, personal websites and hobbyists.

· Includes up to 50,000 transactions per year (which Multimap track).

· It takes just as single line of HTML code to embed the map.

· Choice of map styles (TeleAtlas, Ordance Survey, and Barts) and map views (road view or aerial view, including coverage of the US using Microsoft Virtual Earth).

· The HTML code includes four hyperlinks back to Multimap allowing the user to see the location on Multimap with a bigger map, POI’s and business listings; view the location in Bird’s Eye; get directions to the location; get directions from the location.

To embed a map in your site simply:

1. Go to Multimap.

2. Search for your location on Find a Map.

3. Click on “link” on the top right of the map.

4. A box opens; click to accept T’s and C’s.

5. Select to “customise the map” (select the size of the map and move the red circle).

6. Copy and paste the line of HTML code.

Here’s an example of what the map will look like in your site as well as the links back to Multimap for POI’s, Bird’s eye etc:

We believe that Multimap have seen a rapid uptake in these maps into client’s websites. For a list of a few examples please click here.

Before you think this is the panacea of mapping we ought to mention that there are some downsides to the ‘embedded maps’ compared to a licensing for full commercial usage. These being:

• Branding – when using the free mapping, the user leaves the client site to view the data and information within a clearly Multimap branded site. This may mean the user will associate the experience as much with the Multimap brand as they do with your brand.
• Advertising – In the Terms and Conditions, Multimap reserve the right to add advertising to the embedded maps which is controlled solely by them and cannot be removed in the free version. There is always the possibility that the advertising will not fit well with your own site branding or content.
• Usage – the maps cannot be embedded in internal business applications such as BI or CRM systems.

After all, it wouldn’t be reasonable to release an all singing and dancing version with unlimited transations for free – Microsoft and Multimap are businesses after all.

If you want our view, we think this is great news for clients who now have more choices in mapping technologies for low volume usage, or where they want to test out user experiences before dipping into their pockets for significant licence fees for wider usage. A thumbs up from us for Multimap!

It has now been a couple of weeks since Earthware launched Street Level View in EarthwareProperty maps and implemented it in NovaLoca.com and people far and wide have been talking about it.

Who has been saying what?

The Rat and  Mouse, London’s Property Blog thinks the photography is sharp and the maps easy to navigate.

Property Technology, IT solutions news for the property market discusses the benefits of using Street Level View when looking for property.

All In London, London Forum offers a space for people to talk about what they think of Street Level View.

The Londonist, a website about London describes where the Street Level imagery came from and that it can now be ‘played with’ in NovaLoca.com

Digital Urban which explores how urban environments can be and are represented digitally explains how Street Level View has been implemented into Earthware’s maps and describes Earthware as "a company worth watching".

If you have seen an article about what Earthware have been doing with Street Level View or if you have something to say about Street Level View please contact us.

Earthware are celebrating having become finalists for Team of the Year at the 2008 Business Startups Awards.

So what is it like working for Earthware?

From the outset Neil and Brian, Earthware’s directors, had a vision to be innovative and different from many other companies in terms of their attitude towards staff. At Earthware job titles are irrelevant, the whole team has a say in decisions regarding the company, everyone has access to the company finances, an open plan office space is essential and hierarchy has little, if any, bearing on how the company operates, (for an idea of our aspirations see Ricardo Semler’s “Maverick”).

We make every effort to identify the core strengths we have available within the Earthware team and armed with this knowledge we make sure the right person is doing the task to ensure the company is run as efficiently and cost effectively as possible. We also find that this is a great way to attract and keep excellent staff!

Features editor of Startups.co.uk Sara Rizk says "Earthware is a great example of  the kind of innovative and fresh thinking company that the Startups love to champion. The business keeps a strong focus on technology at its core while constantly thinking about how its products engage with its clients’ needs".

Discover what the Earthware team have to say and find out more about careers at Earthware and see what one newspaper had to say about us.