Thursday, July 12, 2007

Prion on Nestoria

While searching unsuccessfully on Google a Flickr for photo's of my old school (Ysgol Pantpastynog, Prion), I came across Houses for sale in Prion on Nestoria. Nestoria is an on-line service for advertising houses for sale/rent, which uses a 'mashup' of information from various sources which might be of interest to potential purchasers/tenants. I'm familiar with the name Nestoria as it's a company called CodeSyntax (creators of Tagzania) that's responsible for the mapping side. You can make selections so that the map shows:
  • nearest train stations
  • local schools
  • the local MP (but not the local AM, possibly as they're not covered by TheyWorkForYou)
  • pictures of the area
  • the local council tax band (compared to the English! average)
I really like the way it works and looks, although it has some way to go to be fully relevant to Wales. Maybe I'll e-mail them with suggestions, or they might read this post after receiving 1000's of hits (maybe not).

I think it started concentrating on London, and if you search for the postcode SW11, there's even more info like:
  • nearest police station (because it's such a dangerous place to live!)
  • and more importantly where's the nearest pub (from Beer in the Evening)
But if I search via the post code LL16 rather than the name 'Prion', it then also shows pubs in the area - not that I need any introduction.

Nestoria are also responsible for the first Facebook application to be in a language other than English. Hopefully this will encourage Facebook to get their shit together regarding internationalisation/localisation.

and... you can also get RSS feed or e-mail notification for any search (place name or postcode)
Prion - property for sale
'Nestoria

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4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cyfarchion Rhys,

many thanks for the positive review. We'd love any feedback you have on how we can be more relevant in Wales (or in general).

warm regards,
Ed

co-founder Nestoria

7/12/2007 8:02 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, CodeSyntax has done work for Nestoria's maps and other things (pushing their spanish version for instance), but the main merit of their maps remains on the brilliant tech team they've gathered in London.

7/13/2007 10:09 am  
Blogger Rhys Wynne said...

You're too modest Luistxo!

I've been exchanging e-mails with Ed and they're very open to ideas. Topics we covered were

-finding sources of info on Welsh Assembly Members (devolved government) as well as MP's
-council tax figures for Wales
-localisation into Welsh

As I thought, what they can display is dependent on data sources from other sites.

TheyWorkForYou don't currently list names of Assembly members in Wales, but this might change in future. And as Ed rightly pointed out, people from Wales should be requesting this and more importantly offering to help MySociety with research/coding work.

7/13/2007 1:08 pm  
Blogger Rhys Wynne said...

Wow, talk about taking feedback seriously (take note multinationals!), Nestoria are asking for feedback on a Welsh interface on their blog

7/13/2007 3:58 pm  

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