Yahoo!Pipes: a different storytelling

It has been a long time, yes! I was finishing my term papers for the University and preparing my next steps (I’ll tell you about them soon). Now I’m back and  I’d like to share with you part of what I learned during the preparation of my term papers and projects.

First of all I’d like to introduce you Ecolatitude. It’s a blog about environmental news coming from different sources such as BBC, Reuters, Yahoo! and Google News.

What I most liked about this project was my Yahoo!Pipe Map. Have you heart about “Pipes“? It is a very interesting tool created by Yahoo! that allows you to create maps of information, managing topics, filters, RSS… everything! The only problem is that Yahoo! Pipes is still a new technology and sometimes it collapses or works slowly… Moreover you can feel that you don’t understand how this “spaguetti” works but keep trying. The results can be amazing.

But, how does it work? To explain, I’ll show you my pipe:

First of all you have to choose what you want to create. I wanted to create a map with news about environmental issues. So I added the following elements:

Then, you can do the same with all the sources you want to use:

With that information you can finally get your Yahoo!Pipe Map:

I recommend you to visit the site of Yahoo!Pipe and the tutorial they offer. You can also search for the pipes that already exist. That’s an easier way to understand how they work. Finally, visit Ecolatitude and read all the news in a amazing map 🙂

Where? Geo RSS: test 1

Location is one of the main topics for social and digital media. Where are you? Where is this happening? are important questions for people who want to be in contact with others. It is not any more just about messages, about saying something. Now, a lot of people want to say where they are and to know where you are.

I have to confess that I don’t like too much the idea of giving so much information about me. I think it’s enough being in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and more social networks, but why telling where am I? Maybe you and me have the same questions, but developers are working hard in geotagging, location… Everytime technology becomes more mobile, location becomes more omnipresent.

Because of that, I decided to try to do something with location and news.  So, my first challenge is to find a way to update news in a map automatically.

For that I am using Yahoo! Pipes… to convert from RSS to Geo RSS.

Then, I used Acme GeoRSS to visualize the map

I did that with RRS Feeds news from BBC News, The Independent ang New York Times, particularly with news about environment.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

THE INDEPENDENT

BBC NEWS

My new “mobile life”

I have to confess that my life or at least the ways that I move in my everyday spaces are becoming different with my new toy: my smart mobile phone- it is really smart :). Here I am in front of my laptop with my mobile phone over my desk. I try not to look at it at every minute but I do. I want to see if my dad is connected on Skype and although I can talk with him on Skype using my laptop I want to do it on my phone. It feels different, comfortable and of course more mobile. Yes, I know, maybe most of you have experienced this before, but I just bought my new mobile phone (more interactive that the one I had before) a few days ago and I am very happy and excited with it.
I am also trying to experiment with GPS and maps and I have been doing some stuff (I’ll show you later). Another interesting topic that I have been reading about is mobile art. I am impressed with some mobile projects related with GPS and the idea of drawing GPS maps with an artistic aims. Here are some examples
Yesterday I played with locative tools in my mobile phone in the route from my home to university with GPS and the position on maps and I am going to see now what else can I do with it.

If you have any suggestions about GPS and mobile art, feel free to tell me 🙂

Working with maps

I know, Google Maps have existed during long time ago but I have to confess that I haven’t used it before yesterday! And I did it because I am excited with my new mobile phone and with the idea of working with mobile and locative media for my master courses.

So, here is my first project: A new map site for students living in Brighton where I will show some stores with especial discounts for students and furthermore I will publish links of other interesting stores and places. The idea is to add interesting data and invite people to contribute to this map too with their own tips about what to find in Brighton.

Here is my map that is called: Discounts for students @ Brighton.  Enjoy it…