Saturday, February 21, 2015

MapDeck Crowdfunding

We were overwhelmed with the interest in MapDeck and our applications so this offer has now closed.  You can still register your interest in beta release via contact form on mapdeck.com site. Stay tuned for the updates!


Please review the details of the offer below and submit your expression of interest via the contact form on Mapdeck.com front page. 

[ Our mission ] 

We believe that good information empowers businesses to make better decisions. And in turn, better decisions allow your organisation to reach its goals faster. Hence, access to the right information is imperative to your businesses future success.

By facilitating easy access to useful data and analytical tools - anywhere, at any time, and on any device – we can provide our users with a unique advantage: an opportunity to consult and review crucial information at the time of making important decisions. With MapDeck you can make fully informed decisions at any time.

We are currently building the infrastructure to make this all possible. By taking advantage right now of our first two stand-alone web applications you can help us with its development and bring forward the official launch of MapDeck to mid-2015!


[ Who will benefit from this offer ]

Our first prototype apps will be of particular interest to those who:
  • create and manage sales territories, franchise territories, or dealership areas based on postcodes; 
  • require socio-economic statistics to identify market opportunities in specific locations.
You will find links to examples of the output that can be created and published through our MapDeck applications below.


[The offer] 

We are inviting 100 new users to subscribe to our Mapdeck data and application package at a highly discounted price.

The apps are stand-alone, fully functional prototypes, a bit rough around the edges but already delivering real benefits to many existing users.

You do not have to wait for the Mapdeck platform to be fully operational to start reaping the rewards of incorporating spatial information and analysis into your decision making processes.

Start your subscription now by submitting your expression of interest via the contact form on Mapdeck.com front page


The package offer includes:

Sales Area Management Tool: this tool facilitates the fast creation of sales or franchise territories based on manually selected postcodes - either via a map-click function, drawing a circle or polygon on a map, or by typing in the required postcode numbers.


It takes only a few minutes to chart these territories, rather than weeks of painstakingly matching individual postcode numbers to locations off hardcopy maps. Information can then be exported in CSV format for reuse in spreadsheets or saved for editing at a later date.

For further details about Sales Area Management Tools functionality please refer to this All-Things-Spatial blog article.

Thematic Mapper: this tool allows you to create a visualisation of location-specific information that is matched to administrative boundaries (such as postcodes), or alternatively, to location-points (such as cities, towns or individual addresses).

Unlike other online GIS tools, Thematic Mapper allows you to create choropleth (thematic) maps on-the-go. In other words, polygons are assigned colours dynamically, according to rules defined by the user, and maps are not preconfigured in advance by the system administrator.

This capability empowers users to create custom maps, according to individual requirements and aesthetics - regardless of whether the map content is based on generic data (for example, postcode boundaries and Census statistics) or based on user private information* uploaded to the server (for example, monthly sales by postcode or by individual customer).

/* Please note, this specific functionality is not yet fully automated and hence it is not part of the package offering. However, we will be very happy to assist you with importing your own data under a separate arrangement./ 

The key advantage of Thematic Mapper is the ease in creating and publishing maps online. Users do not have to source their own data or be experts in GIS or spatial analytics to create comprehensive, information-rich and visually attractive online maps.

For further details about Thematic Mapper’s functionality please refer to this All-Things-Spatial blog article

Data included in this deal:

  • 2011 Australian Postal Area boundaries (2,500+ polygons) 
  • Census 2011 Basic Community Profiles (over 7,000 individual data items) 
  • Background maps and imagery from various open source projects (including OpenStreetMap and Geoscience Australia) 
  • location search powered by MapQuest’s Nominatim service 

Would you like to have access to similar information for the US, or UK or New Zealand? Be the first to ask! 

[ Consideration ] 

For a single payment of A$... [offer no longer available] you will secure a 12 month subscription to the above listed tools and data (tax invoice provided). This represents a significant discount to other, less-powerful GIS tools currently available in the market.

PLUS, all subscribers will receive:
  • free access to equivalent Mapdeck tools and data when it is formally launched (excluding the public publishing option) for the reminder of the subscription term; and 
  • 50% discount on the first full year subscription for these two Mapdeck tools if you choose to continue with the service. 

Please use our contact form on mapdeck.com to register your expression of interest in this offer.

Important! Please note: The tools and data under this offer are provided on “as is” basis, with no warranty as to their fitness for any purpose or that your access to the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, also that any defects will be corrected. These are, after all, only prototypes.

The tools in the prototype release are intended primarily for individual use and the map sharing functionality is suitable only for small groups of users. While we place no restrictions on how many maps can be created and published per account, this offer is conditional on the overall traffic to all accounts not exceeding 100,000 users a month.

In the interest of all subscribers to this offer and their patrons, we reserve the right to block any maps that account for unreasonably large proportion of the traffic. The decision will be at our sole discretion. If you think traffic to your published maps will exceed the limits we will be happy to discuss contingencies on case by case basis.


[ Other options to participate in this initiative ] 

If you are not in a position to assist financially in the development of the Mapdeck platform by taking up our offer, you can still provide us with valuable feedback on the public maps created with the Thematic Mapper app. All it takes is a short message using the “contact us” form on mapdeck.com!

Any comments on what you like or don’t like about the functionality of our apps, suggestions on how to improve them, or any request to add other functionality, or even build entire application are most welcome!


[ Examples of Thematic Mapper public maps ] 

Created with standard information:
Census data for property buyers


Created with custom information:
Demonstration of Thematic Mapper functionality (public maps)
Sydney Greater Metropolitan Region Property Prices
[In]Sight Regional Competitiveness Index for Local Government Areas 
Southern Inland - Local Business
Southern Inland – Employment
Southern Inland – Population
My Broadband maps