WikiLoc's blog

2012-06-27T07:49:00.000-07:00

We're glad to announce the release of a much requested feature for the Android App: the Search Pack, the search service for Android to explore trails in wikiloc.com right from your Android. Discover trails near your location sorted by proximity or near your next destination. The Search Pack includes filters by activity, distance, elevation, difficulty and choices like “only loop trails”. You can also search by keyword, trail ID or your favorite trails.

If you already have Wikiloc App on your Android, you must upgrade to the latest version (2.0) or get it from Google Play. Then you can get a Search Pack from wikiloc.com or directly from the App.

We initially thought to offer the Search Pack for a limited time, say 1 month, 6 months or one year renewable. After consulting with several of you, we realized that if you buy the pack for a month and then for whatever reason (period of bad weather, personal problems, etc. ..) you can’t use it during that time you would have to pay again for renewing it, even without having used it. We agreed it'd be best to offer the service without a time limit and just pay for use. You'll have free access to search trails until you've reached the limit of downloads, each pack includes 100 trail downloads.

Also, since attaching the Search Pack to a single smartphone was not convenient the Search Pack is associated with your user account at Wikiloc.com, so you can search and download trails from your smartphone or a friend phone by just signing in to your account.

You can download trails from the web and transfer them to your Android, but we hope you'll find the Search Pack convenient and decide it's worth paying a few euros for it to discover and download trails in a simpler way and helping us out a bit so we can continue to improve Wikiloc.

We know it's taken quite some time, so thanks for your patience and support.

Hope you like it!

--
Jordi

Private messaging

2012-02-29T08:05:00.000-08:00

Private messaging, a much requested feature, is finally online. You can now contact directly another wikiloc user using the new button under his/her photo.

And we've added several outdoor activities including nordic walking, via ferrata, swimming and more!

We keep working on improvements you've been asking for, stay tuned!

Jordi

Advertising Opportunities on Wikiloc.com

2010-12-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

Wikiloc was born in 2005. Back then, we didn´t know if it was the right time to launch something like that, if the site would be useful for the users or how it would evolve over the time. But there was something that was very clear to us: the site would be successful only if you, the community of users, were at the top of each end every decision we take at Wikiloc. Only if you felt really comfortable uploading tracks, sharing content and making comments this would be something worth keeping working at. Thus this has turned into our motto: the user goes first.

And so over the years, we have been working with the above goal in mind. Each new feature we add, each change we make or each functionality we remove from the site goes towards making Wikiloc user's life easier, while at the same time trying to add new features to give you more power to do more, to share more, to discover more.

We have gone a long way, but this is just the beginning. Though we can't yet share it with all of you, we have great plans in mind and we are extremely excited about them. Part of those plans involve making our team to grow and to take it to the next level. And for this, my friends, we need to tap into a stronger source of income. Although we have had AdSense advertising on Wikiloc, it's not as relevant as we would like, thus not as useful nor close to the motto I've stated above. We believe that advertising needs to fulfill three pillars: allow us to built a better site, give results to advertisers AND to add value to the user. Those three points are essential. It needs to be a win-win-win situation, if not, it simply won´t work.

For this, for the last few weeks we have been working on setting up our platform to open Wikiloc to new sponsors and advertisers. If you own (or work in) a business in an industry closely related to Wikiloc content, you are in sync with Wikiloc's way of doing things and want to share your products or services with hundreds of thousands of internet users, drop us a line at advertise AT wikiloc DOT com or take a look at our advertising page.

And if you are one of Wikiloc's community members, expect the same old Wikiloc with new added value and new great things ahead.

Jordi

Explore photos taken along the trails

2010-09-17T01:24:00.000-07:00

We've improved the dynamic map page you use to explore trails by adding a photo thumbnail bar right below the map. The already more than 350.000 beautiful photos and videos we all have shared in wikiloc.com had to be more prominent.

By moving the mouse pointer above the trails list, on the icon on the map or on a photo thumbnail, you'll see that the trail is highlighted, if you click you'll navigate to that trail's page with all the details.

If you want to try it live simply open the map page and start exploring!

We hope that will help you discover interesting trails easily in the World Map before opening the detailed trail page.

We've also been working in several bug fixes and speed improvements and we've advanced in new features that soon will go live.

Hope you like it!

--Jordi

Yesterday's Outage

2010-09-17T00:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, from 1:12pm until shortly before 9pm GMT, we had an unscheduled and unplanned outage due to a DNS issue at our domain registrar. That basically means that Wikiloc couldn't be reached from several European countries (see screenshot below).

I've been working like a mad man last night to make the site accessible from everywhere again, I have setup two DNS servers and several other measures that should prevent this from happening again in the future. Wikiloc.com should be back up soon for you, if it’s not already.

The site was functioning normally and of course no data has been lost. It's been just a domain name resolution issue.

My sincere apologies and thanks for your patience. If you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me.

--
Jordi

You may now choose your activities

2010-05-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you that have contacted me telling that "I'm a hiker/cyclist and I'd like to see only hiking/bicycling trails in Wikiloc", I'm happy to announce that you may already do so.

For example, I'm currently planning a bicycle touring trip in Switzerland and now I can choose to see only bicycling trails in the area:

Additionally you can sign in and set your preferred activities by default in your settings page and from then on see only those activities in Wikiloc:

I know many of you have been awaiting for this feature, so many thanks for your patience and for your continuous feedback. Hope you enjoy it!

--Jordi

Wikiloc enters the Alexa's "top 50.000" sites!

2010-05-25T01:24:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist to post this one :) Wikiloc is placed 49,818 in the Alexa Traffic Rank list. That's a pretty cool number on the Internet considering there are an estimated 206,026,787 sites out there.

Back to work, I'm working on several improvements that will go live in the next few days. Stay tuned!

Wikiloc artık Türkçe olarakta yayında!

2010-04-27T01:36:00.000-07:00

(Now Wikiloc also on air in Turkish)

Kudos to Ersan Cinan for his full translation of Wikiloc to Turkish.

There are several interesting trails in Turkey like Balloon flight over Cappadocia or a more refreshing hike to a beautiful waterfall near the city of Izmir:

Thanks Ersan!

Jordi

Upcoming events

2010-04-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder for upcoming appearances, on May 11th I’ll be in Sevilla, Spain, to speak at the Encuentro de Directivos de Cajasol. After the event I’ll be in Sevilla briefly if anyone wants to do a meetup

160.000 trails and new server

2010-04-06T07:51:00.000-07:00

Today April 7th is Wikiloc's birthday (and mine too :) and the present for Wikiloc has been a much more powerful i7 server. The old server was almost melting during traffic peaks and it deserved a break after all these years of good service.

I hope you'll enjoy browsing trails in wikiloc.com much faster from now on.

To date you and me together with almost 130,000 other users have shared already more than 162,000 trails with beautiful photos taken along the trail (249,402 so far).

Now you can likely find an outdoor trail almost anywhere you visit like hiking or mountain biking in Easter Island (Rapa Nui), walking among penguins in Antartica or taking an off-road trip to watch a volcano eruption in Iceland

We're growing fast in around 9,000 new trails per month and enjoying a lot working on the project. More improvements that you've suggested are in the pipe and will go online soon. Stay tuned!

Jordi

Wikiloc winner of the Living Labs Global Showcase Award!

2010-02-24T09:04:00.001-08:00

Within the framework of the Living Labs Global showcase, wikiloc has been awarded by the cities of Comarca de La Selva (Spain) and Taipei (Taiwan).

We are very happy with this award. We hope wikiloc will become a global source of interesting outdoor activities at the destination available for everyone and an alternative for a more sustainable and rewarding way of travel for all of us.

You might also watch the video that we prepared for the Living Labs contest, we created it thanks to the professional help of someone who's in the NBA of multimedia content design, Toño Garcia from ShakingBox, they're great people doing great stuff.

Wikiloc at the Change Summit in National Geographic

2010-01-28T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to announce that we'll have the opportunity to make a presentation of Wikiloc at the Change Summit that will be held in National Geographic's headquarters in Washington DC after winning the Geotourism Challenge.

And thanks to Ashoka Changemakers we'll join the other winners, Pepy tours from Cambodia and Nature Air from Costa Rica, in a round table at the Educational Travel Conference in Rhode Island where more than 1000 nonprofit travel professionals will meet.

We hope to return from those events with many new ideas to improve Wikiloc and make it much more useful for you. If you happen to be there give me a howler, I'd be happy to meet you in DC or in Rhode Island!

--Jordi

More map layers available

2010-01-15T01:24:00.000-08:00

You have available two new cool base maps with worldwide coverage. The first one is a relief map that albeit hasn't data at big scales (you'll have to zoom out to see the map) it is spectacular specially around mountains. It is maintained and offered by the guys at http://maps-for-free.com/ and looks like this:

The second one is also a great topographic map with beautifully detailed info (contour lines, trees depicting forests, shelters etc..) I love it. We can enjoy this map thanks to the guys at http://www.opencyclemap.org/

The trail above is a summer ascent to the Mont Blanc peak in the French Alps climbed and shared in Wikiloc by Ivar Thorolfsson

If you know another public map service please tell me and I'll try to add it to the current map list. I've had several requests from you to add more maps from Russia, Canada, France etc.. and I'm still working on them since they require to dive into GIS geeky stuff including coordinate reprojections. I cannot advance a date, hope to add them to Wikiloc soon. Thanks!

--Jordi

Your trails look better in Wikiloc

2009-12-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to bring you news about a recent improvement in wikiloc.com to improve the resolution of all the beautiful photos taken along the trails.

All scaled photos and thumbnails (above half a million) shown on the site have been regenerated using a better compression algorithm and now they look nicer:

Before:

Now:

Subtle but important to keep quality high across the site

Your original photos are kept unchanged as you uploaded them, this improvement only applies to the resized versions shown at wikiloc.com.

Hope you like it!

[Update] These photos were taken by ClipperCreekWanderer along Lake Powel-Rainbow bridge /Echo camp and Bryce Canyon NP-Navajo loop trails, both in Utah (USA)

Wikiloc in Polish!

2009-10-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Grzegorz and Zbigniew Ilków wikiloc is fully translated to Рolish (Polski). As always, any help to bring down language barriers is highly appreciated, if you wish to volunteer translating to your language just drop me an e-mail at jordi A T wikiloc.com. Thanks a lot!

Please visit the about Wikiloc page for the complete list of volunteers.

New features

2009-10-13T02:07:00.000-07:00

I'm glad to bring you two new features recently added to Wikiloc.com:

While drawing a trail on a map, you can now work with a maximized map that covers most of your screen and also you may choose between Google Maps or third party maps like USGS topo, ICC topo, etc.. I'm working in several additional maps that you've recently suggested. Having a choice to switch between maps is useful when you know that there is a trail that is not visible in the satellite view, perhaps covered by trees. In those cases, a topographic map could be of help:

There has been some not so visual work behind the scenes too, like correcting the elevation profile graphs for all trails (that's +100.000) that now display elevation-distance (instead of elevation-time as before). Additionally elevation data has been automatically calculated to all trails with lack of height value on their coordinates. Thanks to all of you who have contacted me directly or in the forum raising the need to fix it. Now all trails in Wikiloc should have elevation data (if you discover one that do not, please tell me..)

Oh! and try to move the mouse over the elevation profile graph! hope you find it useful :-)

[UPDATE]

Another small improvement that will surely make it easier to maintain your trails. Aside from editing from "your trails" page, you may also start editing from the trail page itself. The icon is right below the trail's name, above the map:

Jordi

Wikiloc winner of the Geotourism Challenge!

2009-09-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to bring you this news. A recognition from Ashoka Changemaker's and National Geographic to Wikiloc as a community, to all of us who share beautiful outdoor trails and photos in wikiloc.com.

My sincere thanks to all of you that have voted for Wikiloc and made this huge achievement possible. The number of votes has been really high as well as the emails of support I've got from you.

Aside from a better hardware infrastructure, I hope that this will also accelerate several improvements on the site that are in the pipe.

Many thanks!

--Jordi

Tiny gadget for your blog

2009-08-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

Do you have a blog and would like to show off your latest outdoor trails? you may do it easily: access your profile by clicking on your username at the upper-right section of Wikiloc, grab the HTML code under "Blog Widget" and paste it to your blog.

Here's mine:

That was a Sunday morning hack so if you detect some issue please tell me at jordi -AT- wikiloc.com and I'll fix it ASAP :-) I appreciate your feedback

Hope you like it!

--Jordi

Wikiloc finalist of the Geoturism Challenge!

2009-07-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that Wikiloc is a finalist of the Geotourism challenge organized by Ashoka's Changemakers and National Geographic.

Geotourism, "tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place -its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents" is in the heart of the Wikiloc's community and we're proud to be part of it.

I would like to encourage you to enter and vote for the 3 projects that you find more interesting (you should vote for 3 projects, marking 3 checkboxes for your vote to have effect), and needless to say that if Wikiloc is amongst your prefered ones, the better! :)

Wikiloc finalista del concurso de Geoturismo!

2009-07-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Me alegro de poder anunciar que Wikiloc ha sido seleccionado como uno de los 10 proyectos finalistas en el concurso de Geoturismo organizado por Ashoka’s Changemakers y National Geographic.

El Geoturismo, "el turismo que sustenta o realza el carácter geográfico de un lugar - su medio ambiente, la cultura, la estética, el patrimonio y el bienestar de sus residentes" es la base de la comunidad de Wikiloc y por la que estamos orgullosos de formar parte.

Os animo a que entréis y voteis por los 3 proyectos que encontreis mas interesantes (debes votar por 3 proyectos marcando 3 casillas para que el voto tenga efecto), y si Wikiloc es uno de ellos mucho mejor! :)

Wikiloc in Russian!

2009-06-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

маршруты и путевые точки по всему миру!

Thanks to Herurg wikiloc is fully translated to Русский (Russian). Any help with new translations is highly appreciated, if you wish to volunteer translating to your language just drop me an e-mail at jordi A T wikiloc.com. Many thanks in advance!

Please visit the about Wikiloc page for the complete list of volunteers.

Draw your trails by hand

2009-05-11T02:51:00.000-07:00

Whether you are planning a new trail for your next trip or willing to share a cool route you know by heart but haven't in your GPS receiver, you may find interesting a new feature of wikiloc that allows you to draw tracks manually on a map:

The link to access the tool is on the right side of the upload page

You may also add up to 25 waypoints along the route. And the elevation data and graph will be also calculated automatically for you.

Hope this will be an useful addition to your trail mapping toolbox! :)

Best,
Jordi

Wikiloc now a "preview layer" of Google Earth!

2009-03-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to write about this new milestone that will surely make it easier to explore and discover great outdoor trails with Google Earth.

From now on several trails from Wikiloc will be shown automatically just after opening Google Earth:

That makes the layer easily discoverable since it may be activated by clicking on the "Show this layer" button on the balloon:

You may also choose to turn it on/off from Google Earth's Gallery section as before (see former post)

Enjoy and happy trails!

--Jordi

Wikiloc in Serbian!

2009-02-26T07:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Alex Milanovic we have Wikiloc in Serbian (Srpski (BiH))

With Serbian Wikiloc is already available in 13 languages, but needless to say that more translations are very welcome. If you wish to help in bringing language barriers down, just drop me an e-mail at jordi A T wikiloc.com

You can visit the 'about Wikiloc' page for a complete list of collaborators.

50000 trails from around the World

2009-02-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

Today we have reached another magic number in Wikiloc. This time not related to traffic but to the number of trails all of us have shared so far in Wikiloc: 50.000

I hope that this will help you find trails in your favourite areas but also discover amazing outdoor spots like mountain bike trails in Rapa Nui, tracks in the Hawaii's Volcanoes N.P., snorkeling spots in Mozambique or mountaineering routes in Patagonia. We have a beautiful World to explore!

And that's just another step in the long trail we have in front of us. I'm working hard improving the site with your suggestions and hope to continue getting you on board. Stay tuned, more news are coming.

Enjoy and happy trails!
Jordi