Plazes, a kinda-cool, formerly networked-based geolocation tool has just been revamped. They’ve been promoting this change for over a month (I got a cool invite to the launch party, but couldn’t make the flight to Germany), and they’re continuing the push now that it’s live. I’ve used the new service for a few days, the company has sent me an email soliciting feedback, I’m offering it.
I submitted the following via the site’s Contact form, but the message seems to have disappeared, and I prefer public discussion, so I’m reprinting it here:
I like a lot of the new Plazes, but…
All my previously “unknown” Plazes got re-assigned to Heidelberg. Some of those unknown Plazes are truly unknown, but I usually try to go back and fill in the details of a location after the fact (if not in-situ). Now it looks like I can’t (and I won’t get discoverer’s credit (thinking of that, do “discoverers” still get credit in the new system?)).
Also, I can’t figure out how to get an RSS/Atom feed of my movements. It was easy in the old site, but not now, and I’m finally getting interested in using that data in my blog.
The new Plazer app (Mac OS X) is prettier, but the big feature for me is automatically updating my current Plaze wherever I go. I just found a preferences option for that and I’m hoping it does what I expect.
The SMS features are cool, but it took me a while to find the instructions on how to use them. They’re not linked in the Tools tab, and it took me a while to find the Help link and look there.
Finally, a more philosophical question, Plazes seems to be de-emphasizing network-based location and discovery. Is there a story there?
Thank you,
Casey
[tags]plazes, geolocation, customer relations, product feedback[/tags]