Building a new location-aware infrastructure for calendaring and scheduling

Building a new location-aware infrastructure
for calendaring and scheduling
Peter Batty, Spatial Networking
GeoWeb 2009

Where and when
will you be close to
your friends?

whereyougonnabe.com!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Jason, Erin, Paula
Sacré-Coeur
Paris

Sean, Moira, Paula
La Coupole Restaurant
Paris


How many friends do
you just miss in airports? http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/plasticbystander/879496227/

current location


future location
current location


Beneﬁts
• Meet friends / business contacts more often
and more easily

• Make better use of time

• Save travel costs

• Environmental beneﬁts


Key Challenges

• Modeling (ﬁne grained) future space-time
• Obtaining data on future plans
• Notiﬁcation & Visualization


Coarse grained! Fine grained!

Space! City! Co-ordinate!

Time! Day! Minute!

Query! ??! Precise!
Accuracy!

Space-time models!

Coarse grained future location
Where is “close” to
San Jose in Dopplr?

Novato
75 miles, 2+ hours in trafﬁc
= “CLOSE”
“Proximity” is based
on closest “big” city
Los Gatos
10 miles, 15 minutes
= “NOT CLOSE”


Fine grained
future location

Overlapping activities!
Lunch (Bella Mia Drinks (Splash Bar
Restaurant)! & Grill)!

Time!

Repeating activities!
Work!

Time!


Maybe? Probably? Either ... or? Uncertainty and
alternatives

Linear activities
Road trips
Train journeys


Obtaining data on future plans

Direct input Calendar

Other location
systems


Obtaining data on future plans

Travel bookings Restaurant Invitations &
reservations Events

Tickets


Outlook add-in

Email whereyougonnabe

Calendar
Full automation
The implicit web


Multiple
data sources

Departing at Denver Airport
Jul 22, 9:06am to 11:06am

Flying Denver to Vancouver
Jul 22, 11:06am to 1:15pm

Arriving Vancouver Airport
Jul 22, 1:15pm to 2:15pm

Driving Vancouver to Whistler
Jul 22, 2:15pm to 4:30pm
Mountain biking vacation at Fairmont
Whistler
Jul 22 4:30pm to Jul 25 10:51am
Driving Whistler to Vancouver
Jul 25 10:51am to 1:06pm

Departing at Vancouver Airport
Jul 25 1:06pm to 3:06pm

Flying Vancouver to Denver
Jul 25 3:06pm to 6:55pm

Arriving at Denver Airport
Jul 25, 6:55pm to 7:55pm


What is “interesting”? Who is “close”?


Factors in
“interestingness”
Geographical
Distance apart
Temporal
Distance
Length of activity
from home

Distance Availability
from home Nature of activity
Adjacent activities

Distance between homes Personal
Preferences re this person
When did you last meet?


Visualization!


Third party applications
Kids’ activities
Yoga
Concerts Cruises / Tours

Future Location API


http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/intangible/2632963377/

whereyougonnadig?

Events

whereyougonnabe

+ +

a new location-aware infrastructure


Key perspectives

507 336/
61
oley/11
edo
s/pag
/p hoto
com
w.ﬂ ickr.
w
http://w

The Network Effect


Social network source


ﬂickr.com/photos/graﬁxer/3600198988/

Automation


Not just about travel ...

It’s about your calendar

+ +

a new location-aware infrastructure


Business model

• Free
• Professional (individual)
• Enterprise


Nerdy stuff

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/sloth_rider/392367929/

Technology stack


Future technology?


Hosting options
Running in the cloud

Physical hosting
Virtual hosting
Elastic hosting (Amazon)
Application hosting (Google App Engine)

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/glennharper/36001149/

Running your company
in the cloud

Source control (cvsdude.com)
Documentation (various wikis)
Development management (e.g. rallydev.com)
Project management (e.g. basecamp)
Email, calendar etc (Google apps)
Finances (QuickBooks online, vcfo)
http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/glennharper/36001149/

Performance
Testing

210,245 users
(5 per zip code)
21MB data, 17MB index

33,579,939
friend relationships
(30-300 per user)

1,198,639 activities
(5-10 per user, 1 week period)

Used free zip code data to generate database


Performance findings
• Very impressed with PostGIS

• 2D or 3D indexing? 2D for now

• Partition tables by time? No

• Segment geographically? No

• Specific SQL can have a big impact

• Mix of explicit storage and dynamic calculation

Confident we can scale to millions of users


Status


(looking for money)

ﬂickr.com/photos/yomanimus/102798907/

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3550268287/

Nobody has funded us yet!!

ﬂickr.com/photos/seedingchaos/178821720/

ﬂickr.com/photos/yngvar/3337971092/

Graphic on “freezing”

ﬂickr.com/photos/jeremybarwick/3536348957/

We will bounce back!

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/timusan/507493823/

Summary
• Continue to believe there is a big
opportunity in the future location space
• Location aware calendar
• People
• Events
• Looking at options going forward

Building a new location-aware infrastructure for calendaring and scheduling

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