iBegin Blog

I sent out a massmail to everyone who had downloaded data from iBegin Source about upcoming updates. The major points were:

• Launch of Canadian data is coming soon. $1000 per province, $8000 for the entire country
• Categories are going to be revamped. We will be focusing on merging duplicates, renaming existing, and creating super-categories (ie one category encapsulates 20 categories)
• Structure of the data-dumps will be updated to include more information. We will retain the old format as a separate file, so nothing will break.

If you wish to be included in this email list, fill out the following form:

I don’t think people realize how dirty all aspects of local is. Really - other than maybe weather and movies, everything else is as suspect as you can get.

Local data: beyond dirty. There is no central body that contains even the most basic of business info.

Roads data: dirty. Again, no central body that contains all roads/highways/etc in the US. Even the US government’s data source comes woefully short.

Geo data: dirty. Rarely mentioned, but data pertaining to both informal space and formal space borders on ridiculous.

Local data gets a lot of attention, roads data gets mentioned here and there, but geo data is rarely (if ever) mentioned.

For example, one thing we wanted to offer at iBegin Source was metro areas - a lot of local data work is done for a metro, and we wanted to make that process simple. So we went to work on the biggest one: New York.

First step was the official US census data. ‘Massive’ barely covers it. See the picture below:

All that area encompassed in black is the official metro area.

The New York county area didn’t help either - a lot of area on the east that should be included (Brooklyn) wasn’t in the county.

DMA (designated media markets) were even worse, trying to rope in as many people as possible into a metro (obviously to charge higher prices).

Private sources didn’t fare better. For example, one of our data sources (very large company) had pre-assigned cities to metro areas. The NY Metro (each point is a city):

In the end, all we ended up with was a headache. And this was a (relatively) simple problem - New York Metro. Sure there may be issues about a city being included (or not being included), but in general this should be relatively easy. And it only gets far worse with other geo-data.

And so a little teaser for the future:

That was the Yorkville neighbourhood in Toronto. More to come.

Geocoding (converting a physical address to GPS coordinates) is one of those under-belly elements of local that doesn’t get mentioned often. And most local startups completely ignore it - local queries are all handled on the premise of ZIP codes.

I’m very happy that we’ve had full geocoding support (Canada + US) since day one. Not only simple address translation (eg ‘18 Yorkville Avenue, Toronto, ON’) but also street intersections and reverse geocoding (converting physical address to GPS coordinates.). We use reverse geocoding to mention the major intersection near a business.

So after 16 months of usage, and prepping for general release, we have finally unleashed our geocoding service to the public: iBegin Geocoder.

Right now anyone can do 100 geocoding transactions per day for free (we are looking into upping this a bit). Commercial usage is only 1 cent per transaction, and we offer a full enterprise server option for those that want the geocoding to be local to their services.

The documentation is quite simple - if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.

We’ve updated the iBegin Source user panel so that you can now do direct downloads. This allows you do download data directly to your server - no need to login.

We’ve gone ahead and added some much needed ‘little’ features to iBegin Source - Print this Page, Email a Friend, and Embed This.

While the first two are quite standard-fare, the third one is interesting - you can now embed a YP listing directly on your website. No branding, and you have complete control over how it looks.

For example, Shea Stadium:

The possibilities are endless. Because of its customization, you can do a wide variety of things. Want to quickly embed a map (without having to go through the ‘hassle’ of setting it up yourself or even using a map customizer?). Done. Want to provide an address (that will stay up-to-date). Done. Business owner wanting to show a simple map and relevant contact info? Done.

The end result is you can embed business info (as however you want it) in under a minute. With a map. With no branding.

The circular loop-back to iBegin City sites is finally happening …

Sometimes last year, we came to the realization that we were not only at the whim of data providers (who have a nice policy of charging you more based on how popular your website is - the harder you work, the more they make), but also constrained by them. While a 90% may be an A in university, in local search missing 10% makes you look bad. Real bad.

So we took the initiative to build our source of data. We had dealt in databases in many other fields (including aggregate city data), and thus had some associates in the data-business. It was important, for us to grow as an organically-funded business, to not be constrained by the demands of such companies.

As we moved along with data acquisition, we realized we had some issues - geocoding (geocoding is the process of taking a physical address and converting it into GPS coordinates). While geocoding even 100,000 records is not a big deal, 15,000,000 records is a big deal. Most of the major geocoding companies wanted at least $100,000 to geocode them. So we set out on creating an in-house solution - again - not having to depend on an external source for this data.

With all of this in place, we now controlled the entire process - from A to Z.

So we were very proud when we launched iBegin Source. And the results have been fairly positive. End-users have been using the site as a basic YellowPages - the site is on pace to generate over 750,000 pageviews in the next 31 days. End users and business owners have been submitted/updating their business listings - we passed the 1000 mark a while ago, and I am looking forward to breaking 10,000 very soon.

But our focus hasn’t just been on the raw data. We have been listening to what users want, what users are doing, and so forth. The most common request was: weather. So we spent a few weeks and created a weather site.

So - the next 30-60 days are very exciting. We will have two major updates:
1. iBegin Source will expand to Canada. The #1 requested feature for iBegin Source (largely owing to our Canadian start I am sure)
2. iBegin v3 - this will streamline the site, giving more direct local features (ie weather, movie times, guides, news, etc). It will also simplify the distinction between cities (eg profiles are partially ‘locked’ to a city right now).

I am very excited about where we are headed - an independent company making a noticeable dent in local.

The most commonly requested feature we get from users is weather.

And so today I am happy to announce the launch of iBegin Weather.

Simple and fast loading, it gives you the weather you quickly need. Some links:
Toronto Weather
RSS feed for Toronto Weather
Put Toronto Weather on your website/blog.

Weather will be tightly integrated into the new version of iBegin.

We are hard at work on the redesign/re-programming of elements of the iBegin city sites.

We are focusing on localizing the sites even more - eg weather, movie theatre times, etc.

We should be launching the new design and a new city (which will seem an odd choice equivalent to us going into Kalamazoo).

We are making some fantastic strides with US business data, and, while our launch date for Canada data has been pushed back, it is still on.

A quick update on iBegin Source.

Since launch (less than three weeks), we’ve had over 2500 downloads, about 100 updates, 250 submissions, and 15 deletions.

We’ve also added the ability to get a link to a page where you talk about that specific business. An example: Boad Shed Restaurant in Bremerton, WA.

Roughly two weeks ahead of schedule.

Head on over to iBegin Source to see what it’s all about.

The site also features a different color schema - this will be used in the upcoming iBegin re-design.

And because you want to: Digg This