Hi Folks,
I have a mashup project which combines the [login to view URL] API and the Google Maps API:
[login to view URL]
[login to view URL]
Here's how the mashup will work...
1) I'll set up a specific Twitter account which other users can add as a friend.
2) After adding this account as a friend any user can then send a direct message to that account advising their location, eg. "paris, france"
3) A script sitting on my domain will then use the API to listen for all these incoming messages. The script will pick these up and store them in a database. It will need to record each message with the username of the sender, a date/time stamp of receipt, and the message body which will describe the users location.
4) The next part of the mashup is plotting this data on a Google map. Using the google map API we'll be able to display a given users location over time according to the messages that have been received and stored. The map will plot their location as a journey with a line joining all the way points over time...the current location should be displayed using a specific icon. To view their personal map a user will go to [login to view URL] and there the script will display a Google map with their location over time plotted on the map. Clicking a specific way point will pop a dialog box on the map with the users twitter name, the location name, and the time stamp recorded in the database.
Plotting on the map will depend a lot on the quality of the location messages received, so the script which displays the lcaotion on the map must degrade gracefully if the map can not plot the location according to the details recevied. As long as the messages are sent in a reasonably standard format "city,country" then Google maps should be able to plot them ok.
So, in summary there are two parts:
1) The PHP script(s) to listen to the Twitter API and store incoming messages in a MySQL database.
2) The PHP script(s) to take the stored data and plot a users travels on a Google Map
NB: I would be happy also if you prefered to use the Yahoo! maps API.
I am hoping there is someone out there with Google MAps experience because that is probably the more difficult part. The twitter API is pretty straight forward.
If you do have experience in this kind of development please let me know...that will help with the decision making process. Please also hit the PMB if you have questions.
Other things:
- Auto bids ignored
- Payment will be via SL Escrow only
I think that about covers it. Easy eh!