They’re both about localisation, but that doesn’t make them apples and apples

By Ryan Skinner (email)

You probably already know AIS. The short-range coastal tracking system identifies vessels near coastlines all over the world’s oceans, with information about the vessel’s name, speed, destination, heading, etc.

You probably don’t know Foursquare. It’s one of those facebook-like social networks, except this one makes a big deal of location. It’s all about where you’re at, where you’re going, where your friends/girlfriend/mother are, etc. These social location services are one of the four big tech trends of 2010, along with mobile web, iPad and toilet-training cats.

There are many ways that AIS and Foursquare are alike:

• Marketers are gonzo for the data, so they can target buyers (in shipping’s case, agents target ships calling in ports)
• They’re all about location; without it, they’re pretty much pointless (so many examples of AIS position faults)
• With both, you know who’s around you, so you can arrange serendipitous meetings (Foursquare), or avoid them (shipping)
• Both can give away too much information (to house burglars, or pirates)
• Both provide a basic platform that service providers are rushing to build valuable products and services on top of
• People are known to fudge both of them to hide their true location
• Both enable overzealous stalkers; in shipping’s case, this would be a charterer wondering why the ship is idling outside port

But they’ve got at least a few salient differences that prevent too close a comparison:

• Foursquare users opt in. AIS is required by the IMO, at least for most classes of ships
• If you go somewhere in Foursquare, you get a badge. If you go somewhere in shipping, you get money
• Foursquare requires you to check-in at its web-site, or through compatible web services. AIS signals are sent automatically
• Foursquare only gives you access to your friends’ location; any inquisitive person can check out AIS-powered ship positions online
• Foursquare makes location a game; AIS has, as yet, few fun-loving sides

At its root, Foursquare only works if those people whose position it reports, like it. AIS, on the other hand, is just there. You ignore it at your peril. Nonetheless, anyone developing AIS-related services would be wise to look carefully at developments on Foursquare. You always want to be working towards the market’s wants and needs.

So here’s a list of articles about business uses for Foursquare. AIS business developers, dig in:

The NY Times bits blog describes how businesses are using Foursquare statistics.

PBS interviews Foursquare’s chief business development officer, on use of the platform.

Location Meme ran an article about how a restaurant guide (shippers, imagine an agent) uses Foursquare.

Inc.com gives a guide to success on the Foursquare platform.

And lest I forget my friends in marine media, here’s an article about how the big media brands are using Foursquare, to inspire your creative use of AIS.

Some may want to laugh this off, but the Foursquare/AIS analogies are not so far-fetched. For better or worse, fewer and fewer of us are lost under the great blue sky and it’s time to find the costs and benefits of this findability, and manage them.

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Ryan Skinner is a Senior Advisor at Say PR & Communications in Oslo, Norway and blogs at 59° 56′ N. Innovation, technology, media and ideas in the marine realm are his beat.

Coracle Online was one of (if not the first) company in the maritime and shipping industry to get into iPhone and iPod Touch application development.  Their first application, The Maritime Glossary, provides instant access to over 9,000 nautical terms and abbreviations for anyone with an interest in international trade and the maritime world.  The Maritime Glossary is currently available in the iTunes App Store for $4.99 (link to download).

But Coracle is not stopping with just one.  Available next week in the iTunes App Store is Ship It!, a fun game that lets players load cargo and, well, ship it, before time runs out. In the video above, you can see a sneak preview that Coracle recently posted on YouTube.

Also in development from Coracle Online is a third application called Ports Information.  While details on this app have yet to be released, according to their website, the app provides “comprehensive Port Information on your iPhone and iPod Touch”.

And finally for those of you wondering, YES, gCaptain is in the process of developing its own iPhone and iPod Touch application.  While I can’t release the details just yet, stay tuned as we will be doing an official unveiling in coming weeks!

The software development company, PlanetInAction, has just released a free ship simulator game that leverages the Google Earth plugin and presents it as the platform for this free game.  The game is a case study / technology show piece that demonstrates just what can be achieved with Google Earth and, interestingly enough, is called “Ships”.

Ships is a simulation program that allows you to get to be the helmsman of your own fleet of ships – including barges, cargo ships, container ships, and even a cruise ship (the QM 2) – that you can steer anywhere in the world with included 3D graphics and sound effects.

What’s interesting to us is that the game was developed to show off the capabilities of the Google Earth platform and it just so happens that the the way they chose to do it was to allow gamers to control a 3D ship anywhere in the world.

Be sure check out the game for yourself at HERE.

More reading at the Google Earth Blog

Some of you may have noticed the recent change we made to gCaptain’s homepage.  I will not get into the underlying reasons for the switch, but one thing we (and you hopefully) miss is the “Photo of the Day”.  That being said, we want to do our best to promote what a great tool Flickr is for sharing photos amongst professionals and amateurs alike.  That is why we are starting Photo Friday, where we will post the slideshow from gCaptain’s regularly updated photostream of favorites from around the Flickr community.

The United States Coast Guard continues its push to Web 2.o as a means of sharing information with the general public with the launch of a new blog: Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles – Long Beach Blog.  Sector LA – LB is responsible for Coast Guard operations, missions, functions, and responsibilities from (our place of residence and the beautiful) Morro Bay California south to Dana Point California.  In their official launch yesterday, they tell us:

Welcome to this first official post on the Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles – Long Beach Blog. We created this site as a forum to exchange information with you about the missions we, as Coast Guard Guardians, perform on a daily basis.

We are responsible for all Coast Guard operations from The San Luis Obispo/Monterey County Line south to the San Diego/Orange County line. This area of responsibility covers an impressive 64,000 square miles of ocean and 320 miles of shoreline.

Together, we deliver multi-mission services in search and rescue, maritime safety and security, environmental protection, maritime law enforcement and aids to navigation. We will use this blog to keep you informed about what we are doing here at Sector Los Angeles – Long Beach, but we would also like your feedback. Please send us your ideas for content and share your thoughts. Protecting the waters here in Southern California is a team effort and you are all part of that team.

So from the gCaptain team, welcome aboard and we look forward to following as it progresses!  Also be sure to subscibe to their feed HERE

The data visualization above represents the worlds 10 largest container shipping companies by TEU capacity. We created this chart using IBM’s Many Eye’s project which we enjoy using since it gives us a clear, easy to understand and interactive picture of numeric data. Plus it looks pretty cool.

Want to know which company has the largest number of ships or the highest percentage of the overall market? If so then CLICK HERE for the interactive version.

For those who prefer more traditional data we have provided it below or CLICK HERE for the interactive version:

Data Source: AXS-Alphliner (February 2009)

Here at gCaptain, we have relied primarily on search engine optimization (SEO), regularly updating the blog, word-of-mouth and some great partnerships to grow the site. So far, it has worked really well for us. We are now receiving over 100,000 unique visitors monthly and growing at a rapid pace. Furthermore, having done this with little to no marketing budget is something we are very proud of. But most all the low hanging fruit has been picked and now that we are doing this full time, we are ready to take it up a notch…sort of.

We have been exploring and participation in the use of social networking sites (see where to find us below) since they first started appearing on the web. At the same time we feel that we have barely tapped into the true viral marketing potential of many of them. That being said, we are going to start putting a lot of time and energy into using social networking sites to share content, recruit and retain visitors and further build the gCaptain brand.

But before we expend all this energy, we want to know… What are you and your peers using?

gCaptain on the Web

We invite you to join gCaptain on our favorite social media sites at the links below.  You can also leave links to your group or profile in the comments section.

LinkedIn

Twitter

Facebook:

• gCaptain – Group
  
• gCaptain – A Maritime Blog – About Ships – Page
• gCaptain.com’s Maritime Forum – Page

FriendFeed

Flickr

Links to gCaptain Articles:

Twitter Tag

Facebook Tag

Flickr Tag

iCommandant, the “Web Journal of Admiral Thad Allen” has recently posted updates on the Coast Guard’s modernization initiatives. Admiral Allen writes:

Today we are releasing this video to help communicate to our work force and stakeholders the cause for action and the benefit of this critical effort. This video is important for two reasons. First, it communicates in a clear, concise fashion what we are tying to accomplish. Second, the message comes from our active, reserve, civilian, and auxiliary leaders. We have a great opportunity to position the Coast Guard to be responsive to “All Threats” and “All Hazards” as we move forward.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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In addition to the video, information on the USCG’s modernization strategy has also been published on the Commandant’s blog (LINK) and in the pages of Coast Guard Magazine (LINK).  We also recently had the opportunity to discuss the issue with RADM Rabago Director of Acquisitions, which will be posted to this blog shortly.

While  changes to the Coast Guard’s organizational structure, acquisitions and its relationship with the maritime community are of great interest to our readers a more recent development has peaked the interest of gCaptain’s editorial staff; Web 2.0.

For those who just read gCaptain for “the articles”, Web 2.0 is the integration of information, tools and services that promote communities on the web. On the most basic level it means we aggregate and extract information in the form of news, photos and video from external sources throughout the web. Some basic examples of this are using the photo sharing site Flickr to provide our Photo Of The Day or showing videos provided by YouTube. At the highest levels it’s sharing ideas internally (e.g. between the gCaptain forum and blog) and externally through our social media outposts (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…).

Integration has been a cornerstone of our development here at gCaptain. Supporting Web 2.0 consumes a large percentage of our time and resources but has played an important role in our growth and recent success.

In the latest edition of Coast Guard Magazine the move is (partially) explained:

When’s the last time you watched a video on YouTube? Ever looked at news online and ended up on a blog? Been to Wikipedia? That’s social media.

So let’s take a moment to dispel the myths and get on the same page. Blogs aren’t just for people who live in their parents’ basement. Social networking sites aren’t only for people looking to “hook up.” Social media is much bigger than that. Anywhere on the Web you can leave a comment, post a photo or video, or share an idea is social media. That’s a lot of places.

The Coast Guard already has official pages on MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr and YouTube… So when it comes to social media, the Coast Guard has already made the commitment to be there.

We encourage you to read the entire article found HERE but for those still a bit confused, wondering how Web 2.0 can help the USCG or those wondering how gCaptain has began to exceed maritime publishing stalwarts like Lloyds List or Fairplay in the number of web pages viewed,  we must first answer the question; Why are blogs important? Let’s use a video to explain:

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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Now gCaptain has a blog (you are reading it) but this is just one element of our Web 2.0 efforts. Here’s video explaining “social media”, another key element of Web 2.0 that we use heavily.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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More of these excellent videos can be found HERE but to boil everyting down… this blog and our forum, facebook group, twitter page, etc are just tools that allow us to build a community of like minded professionals. Therefore this blog is of little value, the strenght of gCaptain comes in the ideas, thoughts and actions of all our community members regardless of what internet platform you use to comment, interact or share your thoughts. The power to shape the future is in your hands, the Commandant is listening and so is gCaptain, all we need is your help.

Tat Communications has a map of their subsea offerings. We’ve shown similar maps before but this one is interactive! Click on the image above to view in full screen.

Being technologically oriented ship drivers we are easily excited by new web sites that combine these interests. Having worked closely with web based AIS (Digital Seas, EarthNC, ActiveCaptain, VslTrax… to name a few) providers during the Cosco Busan incident we are also increasingly becoming interested in digital ship tracking technology so to say we were excited to learn about the new and innovative AIS site Hi-Def San Francisco would be, well, an understatement. We will be sure to bring you more information on this site as details emerge but till that time enjoy the above image titled “30 Days of SF bay traffic“.