Platial News and Neogeography

Geographic Euthanasia: The End of Platial As We Know It

Just a few minutes ago, we pushed an update that signals the end of Platial as we know it.

The quick things you need to know if you have a Platial map you care about:

• All maps have been replaced with instructions and links for exporting - here is an example http://www.platial.com/map/Cable-Access-Highlights/10095
• The Platial blog will remain active as a point of communication and announcements, as well as the @platialmaps twitter feed
• GeoCommons has offered to store and offer for download all the geo-data (maps and places) from Platial's 5 years of neogeography. Access to this data is not available quite yet, but we will announce it here when it's ready
• Export as soon as you can, the service may get overloaded, you may run into bugs, etc
• The service may go offline as soon as March 2nd (when it happens, it will be due to a disconnection from our internet service providers)
• We are painfully aware that this is an incredibly short amount of time to dump this on people. The only response is a sincere apology.
• Only a logged in user can download their own "User's Places" map (the map of all the places that user added or grabbed)
• All other maps are available for anyone to export, as they have always been publicly accessible.
• Some maps with > 1000 points and/or many uploaded images will fail on the KMZ export, but should work on the KML version, we are working to fix this issue
• The KMZ file is a zipped folder containing the geo-data in KML form, plus all the image files that were being hosted by platial.com (if you 'uploaded' images to platial, they will be included, but if you 'linked' photos from the web to your places, those web based links will simply remain in place)
• If you are having problems with the export, there are a few ways to get help:
• http://getsatisfaction.com/platial
• http://platial.com/feedback
• leaving a comment here
• please include a mapid, or url when describing the problem
• Please pass the news around, we are unable to directly email the members, so are relying solely on word of mouth to get the news out.
• For those with Platial maps living on another site (widgets) we are sad to say that we have not found a comparable product that allows easy migration of your data at this time, but we would be more than happy to direct people to such a service if anyone out there can recommend one.
• Google's MyMaps on the other hand is compatible with the KML files we are exporting. If you want a place to keep your maps visible online, find the 'import' link after you create a new map.

I hope this is enough information to get things started. Export more details about why this is happening in forthcoming posts.

Platial Will Return Soon

As those of you who have used platial over the past 4 years know, we have never been great at uptime. This current situation is similar, we are working hard to bring things back up but it's taking longer than we would have thought.

Don't despair, the maps will return.

Stupid Mistake Meets Technical Nightmare

As some of you noticed, Platial.com was down for a shameful 24 hours yesterday and today. Things should be back to normal for most of you now that we can see DNS propagating.

I'd like to apologize deeply for what was essentially a stupid mistake that spiraled down into a chaotic and stressful day for everyone depending on the platial services. I'd like to extend an especially warm thanks to the members who reached out with concern and responded with patience.

We'll be back up shortly

Minor snag with domain, for those of you who are having trouble accessing the site, it should be resolved shortly.
Grrr.

Map Bounds Bug: I Can Fix it for You

Recently we discovered a new bug. Several people reported it on our forum. If a Place is added to a map outside the area you want the map to include and then you delete that place, the site fails to recompute the map bounds. That means that the map stays zoomed out too far, spoiling the display of your markers.

We are working on a fix, but if you have a map which is looking a little wonky because of this bug, I can fix it for you right away.

You can leave a note on the forum if you want me to fix your map, or email me tracy-at-platial(dot)com. Be sure to tell me the url of your map.

Some Minor Troubles

Update
Everything now seems to be under control. We have captured and rehabilitated the rogue query which was killing the database.

**********

Platial is having some problems this morning, but we're working frantically to get everything sorted out and to get the site back up and running for you. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this is causing.

Tourmapper is on the Fritz

The Tourmapper, which makes maps from the upcoming shows lists on MySpace Music pages, is not working right now. MySpace has made a few changes to the way they handle the tours, inadvertently breaking our little widget. We're working on making the changes we need to make in order to get the Tourmapper working again.

Technical Difficulties

Update at 9:09 AM PST: We've got everything stabilized now. Thanks for your patience.

Posted at 8:22 AM PST
We're having some little database hiccups. We're taking care of it right now. We apologize for the hassle.

All fixed

T'was just a minor thing, all fixed.

Can't Log In... Oh No!

I am very sorry, Platial users. We were having a little glitch with our log in just now. If you got logged out in the middle of doing something you have our sincere apologies.