{"id":1121,"date":"2016-08-04T16:31:05","date_gmt":"2016-08-04T15:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/guwii.com\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2016-08-05T09:28:38","modified_gmt":"2016-08-05T08:28:38","slug":"mapokemon-com-spotting-gap-acting-fast-avoiding-gamble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guwii.com\/mapokemon-com-spotting-gap-acting-fast-avoiding-gamble\/","title":{"rendered":"MAPokemon.com\u200a\u2014\u200aSpotting a gap, acting fast and avoiding a gamble."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pokemon Go\u200a\u2014\u200aI don\u2019t even have to tell you what it is, whether you\u2019re 5 or 95 it\u2019s everywhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like most other millennials I was eager to get my hands on Pokemon Go. I wasn\u2019t even aware of its existence before it really hit the first App Stores in Australia\u200a\u2014\u200aalthough I know many people had been awaiting the app for several months. As soon as I heard that it was released in NZ\/Aus, along with the instant virality it gained within the first 24 hours; I was intrigued. I checked the UK app store daily and even considered doing the \u201chack\u201d of changing my App Store to the Australian version, although later opting to just wait for the proper UK release.<\/p>\n

14th July was when I finally got the app and created my account, and immediately my brain started working on ideas, this app was already taking the world by storm\u200a\u2014\u200aand for the most part I had missed the first week or two of possibilities due to it being released so late in the UK.<\/p>\n

On the evening of the 14th I started brainstorming and my main gripe with the app was that my home is in a fairly suburban location with only 1 Pokestop in the visible distance. Quickly I became aware that most other people are in a similar situation with regards to a lack of Pokestops on their doorstep, and would love to know where their local gyms and Pokestops are. A few hours later I had a pretty solid idea, and a list of possible domain names.<\/p>\n

The idea: A map that shows all Pokestops and Gyms, with the ability for community moderation and additions.<\/h2>\n

I knew time was of the essence, my idea wasn\u2019t solid or planned, but in these situations you go with your gut instinct.
\n15th July I purchased the domain MAPokemon.com , and that evening I setup the hosting and nameservers, created a basic HTML proof of concept and had version 0.1 released online.<\/p>\n

Most people who\u2019ve seen me doing any type of web dev work know I\u2019m a shortcut addict, speed and efficiency lover. I quickly fired up Sublime Text, and first of all got to work on the basics of HTML, CSS, JS and then the core of the Google Maps API. At first, all the Pokestops and locations were a static list I had acquired myself as well as exporting KML from other Google Maps that existed. I did a fair amount of data manipulation on the KML exports and then built a MySQL database around this structure and started pulling the results from it.<\/p>\n

On initial release I saw new locations slowly trickle in from the community, and as the site gained momentum I really wanted to be ahead of the curve and avoid site outages. I put my focus on stability, and started with caching the DB results every 2 seconds to avoid DB load, I even upgraded the Google Maps API to a business account as the places search library very quickly started to hit the daily free limit. Since then CNET, PC World and Reddit all put quite a few links to the site and I was thankful I had done my performance enhancements when I had.<\/p>\n

Since it\u2019s initial release I\u2019ve created the logo, added features for voting on locations, a new drag and drop system for adding locations as well as many security and UX improvements, including a fairly basic system that checks people aren\u2019t trying to add Pokestops at sea.<\/p>\n

How Mapokemon.com now looks (3rd August 2016), MAPokemon\u2019s full stack:<\/h3>\n