Yahoo launches MapMixer and Shop By Color features

Posted on September 13, 2007 at 8:48 am

Last night Yahoo released two new cool features, one for maps and the other for shopping. Using MapMixer you can take a map that’s already been created, like a University map for example, and then overlay that map onto Yahoo maps with full support for zooming and panning. MapMixer morphs a Yahoo map with your own images to create a hybrid map.

The example map shown below takes the Unviersity of Southern California campus map and overlays it onto Yahoo maps. Yahoo automatically creates 5 levels of zoom and detail for your map, so you don’t have to worry about any of that. You simply have to get it aligned and scaled correctly.

The cool thing (and also the hardest part) is actually getting the two images to match each other. Once you upload a picture, you have to pick a few intersection points on both of the maps and Yahoo tries to morph them together automatically. Basically, your map is stretched, rotated and twisted before being applied to the Yahoo map.

You can also copy the embed code for your unique map and post it on your web site or blog. Definitely worth checking out and having some fun!.

The other nice feature that was released yesterday was in Yahoo Shopping. You can now filter down results when searching by choosing from 56 different color hues. Up till now, you could only filter on the usual specs, such as price, style, gender, or brand. The interesting thing about this new filter is that it works for all of the 10 million objects currently indexed by Yahoo.

You will only see the new search filter once you’re into a particular section such as Men’s Casual Shirts. On the left hand side you’ll see the third option down is a Color grid where you can choose your desired color.

All of these new features are part of Yahoo’s new strategy to move from simple web sites to web services. Hopefully, we can expect to see some more very cool additions soon!

This reminds me of a post I had written on the new Windows Live Search Images facial recognition search filter that released a few months back.

Enjoy!

Source: Read/Write Web

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