Fancier thumbnail maps January 28, 2009

A variety of thumbnail map designs are on the way, including one set of background effects we have just launched.

We start off with a ‘special effects background editor’ that enables you to insert different background colours, shading and ‘mirror image’ effects around the edges of your thumbnail map like the one you see on the upper right of this blog posting. NOTE: Right now, these effects are only for advanced users who understand how to copy and paste Javascript onto their pages. Shortly, we will be adding a family of designs that can be chosen more simply and do not depend on Javascript.

To take advantage of this capability, you need to log in to your ClustrMaps Admin page in the normal way, and then click on the brand new option “[E] For thumnbnails with visual effects follow this link”, as illustrated in the screen snapshot below:

Having followed option [E], you will then be taken to the “Clustrmaps Border Generator” that is illustrated below, where you can select among a variety of styles, gradient fills, and backgrounds. You should experiment with different selections, and use the UPDATE button (labelled ‘4’ in the image below) to generate the unique code for your site. The ‘balloon labels’ 1-6 are explained beneath the screen snapshot.

1. Style: there are a number of different styles to choose from, which you need to scroll through to see which one you like.

2. Gradient: this is the ‘splash’ underneath your thumbnail map, and for some (not all) styles you can choose different effects.

3. Background: choose a good background to blend with your site. If you know the exact Hex code for your best background, you can always manually edit this directly in the HTML shown at the bottom.

4. Update button: clicking on this generates the unique code for your site, after you have selected particular style, gradient, and fill options at the top.

5. Head code: for some (not all) styles, it is necessary to copy and paste this portion of the HTML specifically in the HEAD of your page, i.e. somewhere in between the opening HEAD and closing \HEAD tags

6. Body code: For all styles, this is the code that you need to copy and paste into the BODY of your page, i.e. at the location where you want your thumbnail map to appear.

Enjoy your new special effects!

ClustrMaps trumps Geovisite, Amung.Us, Feedjit, Neoplanet! December 22, 2008

Hey, all of these tools are cool, we love ’em, and we enjoy seeing the different aspects each one emphasizes! Of course, there are tradeoffs about which aspect you like best and which is best for your site. So naturally we were extremely pleased when Steve at “I’ve Been Thinking About This…” wrote a detailed analysis of “What visitor map to use?”.

I’ve been looking at blog maps for one that does what I want. It doesn’t seem to be too much to ask…

1. Free!
2. Shows the visits on the map
3. Tracks visits for at least a month
4. Counts the total visits
5. Zooms in or identifies towns clearly
6. Widget thumbnail image scales well in the sidebar
7. Doesn’t distract the user from the blog post

This was an unsolicited analysis, and indeed he criticized us regarding two of his metrics (5 and 6) – but we clarified one issue (and in the New Year we will have a ‘clean sweep’ of all 7 issues) and he picked us as his widget of choice because it does most of what he needs, better, and in the way he needs it. Thanks, Steve! Read what he has to say, and why he prefers ClustrMaps.

Season’s Greetings and Happy New Year to all our loyal fans!

ClustrMaps cake in school! December 5, 2008

This is the kind of thing that brings a huge smile to our faces, and makes everything we do completely worthwhile! A New Zealand school teacher, who deploys ClustrMaps for and with his pupils, had a celebration cake with his class…

… to celebrate 20 000 page views on our blog from 2005 all the way up to 2008.

The cake looks like a square world with countries and continents on. There are red dots for some of the places where people live and have visited our Room 9 Blog.

Mr F lit the candles and then we sang “Happy Blog Day to Us”. We all blew out the candles together. Then we waited outside and Mr F served the cake through the window. It was DELICIOUS!

Have a look at the original posting.

Naturally, these guys are going to be our next User Of The Month! Thank you very much, Room 9!

Country totals, hidden stats option November 24, 2008

We have always emphasized the ‘visual gestalt’ over the ‘detailed statistics’, but since most users love to see details such as country totals, we’ve added that on the big world map pages in the lower right, as highlighted in the reduced-size screen grab immediately below. You can now experience this for yourself by clicking as usual on any ClustrMaps thumbnail map you encounter on the web (some country totals will only appear after the next update cycle). ClustrMaps+ (paying) users can optionally disable the display of all statistics, including not only the new country totals but also the ‘key’ that explains the numbers of dots shown, as described further below.

HIDDEN STATISTICS OPTION:

For ClustrMaps+ (paying) users, it is possible to disable the display of all statistics, including the new country totals. To do this, log in to the Admin page in the usual way, and you will see the ‘hidden stats’ option that you can un-check, about halfway down the page as shown in the following screen grab:

En español: En la pagina “ClustrMaps admin – inscribirse”, buscar ‘Permitir que las estadísticas sean demostradas’:

¡Bienvenido a nuestros usuarios hispanoablantes! November 11, 2008

Nos complace en anunciar la versión en español de ClustrMaps. ¡Disfrutar!

ClustrMaps overtakes MapLoco and ModMyProfile October 26, 2008

Following a previous posting about overtaking Frappr and Platial, we’re now pleased to announce that the latest unique visitor statistics from Compete.com show us overtaking ModMyProfile and MapLoco, both widely deployed by MySpace users. Check out the latest graph below (we’re in red):

This is great news for us, and vindication of our “Slow Steady Scalability Strategy”: we admittedly have somewhat less bling and glitz than some of the other geographical hit counter map widgets, but instead we have a fanatical commitment to our users, to the speed of map rendering, and to the ability to display the locations of “impossibly many visitors in an impossibly small space, all impossibly fast”.

Welcome aboard to SoftLayer and Edublogs September 28, 2008

We’re pleased to announce the addition of SoftLayer and Edublogs to selective sponsorship roles, which means that a dedicated ‘Sponsor:’ banner slot in the upper right of some our large world map pages has been made available to them on a rotating basis.

We have a special relationship with both: SoftLayer is our dedicated hosting provider, and supplies the robust hosting infrastructure and support team that underpins the ClustrMaps server farm. We have been absolutely thrilled with their overall quality of service, performance, reliability, price, feature set, speed and ease of use! [Note: no one advised me about how or whether to write the preceding sentences: I can’t help it – we love ’em!]. Edublogs (“Blogging for teachers and students, made easy”) runs a WordPress-powered blog-hosting solution for educators and students of all ages. Moreover, they have taken a WordPress-specific widget that we developed and made it a prominent part of their widget pack, thereby making it drag-and-drop simple for Edublogs users to add a ClustrMaps widget to their sites. They also provided (via The Edublogger) some very nice screen grabs and instructions for their users, as we indicate on our relevant instruction pages. [OK, no one advised me about any of that wording either – we love them too!]