GEO-SPORT DATA XSPORTMAP PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

ABOUT ME Degree in design with education (Bangor) Discovered whitewater kayaking Mountain Biking Mountain Boarding Skateboarding Formed Bangor Uni Canoe Polo (won BUSA within 4 years) Captained Bangor Uni Canoe Club Formed Xsport Magazine – Made some contacts Formed Ogwen Publishing – Built websites Went back to uni to do a masters in computer science

XSPORT HISTORY 12 issued released – unique visitors

THE PROBLEM WITH MAGAZINES 1.They need articles 2.They need staff to run effectively 3.Each page needs to be designed and typeset individually 4.They cost a surprising amount to run 5.BANDWIDTH!!! 6.All content needs to be edited (a pain if your dyslexic)

THE SOLUTIONS So what could be done to make the xsport project more manageable? 1.Walk away… 2.Move to a blog format. 3.Allow the users to take control of the content.

Things to keep International engagement News articles Rich media / colour User engagement Competitions Things to add Cloud storage Geo tagged media Routes and guides Local knowledge Interaction THE NEW FORMAT

THE WEBSITE A place for information to be shared

THE PROBLEM WITH SPORT ROUTE DATA 1.It goes out of date VERY quickly 2.Its very detailed – Think of your local cycle run, how many turns does it have? 3.The level of detail you need changes depending on what your doing 4.The environment is dynamic, it changes 5.Volume – its the definition of BIG data 6.Its clustered into regions – This causes problems for actually displaying the data 7.A new route may be a collection of sections of older routes 8.Grading is subjective 1.Binary grading 2.Worse case scenario grading 3.Good Day/ Bad Day grading

THE XSPORT ROUTE SYSTEM 1.Different levels of detail displayed 2.On clicking a route, all other local routes are hidden 3.Routes are edited individually as a series of waypoints 4.Rich media can be added directly to routes, geo-tagging the information (Videos and Photos) 5.Routes can be commended on directly 6.Information provided in a route graphic or as a traditional guide. Once we have the data we can display it however people want to access it. 7.Routes can be improved or updated over time as more information becomes available

THE FUTURE OF THE MAP Open access to edit A community based grading system Give all our data a geo reference, blog posts, forum messages etc Inclusion of additional open data for added value Weather data Wind speed and direction Water levels Surf forecasts Webcams Temporal geo data (items that have a time constraint such as events)

XSPORTMAP – THE MAPP Research funded by the DTBF

NEW CHALLENGES Navigating the data via a touchscreen Giving users exactly what they want Speed of connection and BIG data Download or the Cloud? The interface What would people actually use a mobile online guidebook for?

THE SOLUTION The data is sent to the user based on their current location and the immediate 40 mile radius downloaded. This allows us to keep the app light and downloads to a minimum.

WANT TO KNOW MORE Feel free to get in touch with me Personal enquiries Business enquiries Or come to our office in Parc Menai for a brew….