GPSies.com

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GPSies.com
Website logo
"Tracks for vagabonds"
Sports community (see social software )
operator Klaus Bechtold Internet Solutions
On-line August 2006 (currently closed since 2019)
http://www.gpsies.com/

GPSies.com was an online sports community for outdoor and GPS trails from 2006 to 2019 . The US company Alltrails took over members and existing data in its own database in 2019 and the service GPSies.com was discontinued.

Status before the sale

With over 4,800,000 tours, all of which could be displayed and downloaded in the browser on the online maps, and 570,000 registered users (as of August 2017), GPSies was one of the largest portals of its kind in Europe. Most of the route types were bike tours (racing bike and mountain bike) and hikes, running routes, but motor, winter, riding and water sports were also represented. The users could either draw their routes themselves on the online maps in the browser or import them as GPS recordings . There was also a file converter that automatically recognized the different GPS file formats and converted them into the desired target format (e.g. KML , GPX , NMEA, etc.). All functions of GPSies were offered free of charge and in some cases also without registration or registration .

history

GPSies was launched in August 2006 as a hobby project by software developer Klaus Bechtold. Constant further developments and suggestions from the community resulted in more and more functions that were adapted to the respective sports. For example, for racing and mountain bikers have been altitude accumulated or the tempo (for runners Pace shown). The costs of the operation were financed privately for the first two years, later a donation request was made. The company is now also financed through online marketing (since the end of 2008) and collaborations.

The website was launched simultaneously in German and English and is now available in over 20 languages. The translations were done by the community itself. Most of the traffic and routes come from Germany, France, Portugal, Austria, Italy and Switzerland.

The website was mentioned a lot in the press and on blogs , mostly in the context of outdoor and geospatial applications . The WDR program Leonardo reported extensively on GPSies. Well-known magazines also mentioned the service of GPSies, such as the magazine Focus , the c't , the Manager Magazin , the Frankfurter Rundschau or the Nürnberger Zeitung .

The official Geo Developer Blog from Google listed GPSies as one of its favorites. In 2006 GPSies was a recommended project from Google Code (“Featured Projects on Google Code”).

In July 2019, the operator announced that the existing members and tours would be transferred to the US company. Part of the functionality should also be taken over.

A free download of the GPX data or the PDF representation of set routes is not possible with the new operator.

technology

GPSies was a J2EE application and has been using the Java - Framework Struts developed. Direct Web Remoting was used as the Ajax framework and Prototype as the JavaScript framework . Furthermore, routes could be published directly on Twitter . The routes and maps were enriched with additional information through added value from YouTube , Wikipedia , Panoramio or the insertion of own geo-referenced images from Picasa .

Using the freely available programming interface (API) from GPSies, third-party systems (mobile devices, desktop software or websites) could also access the route collection. The tours could thus be recorded and accessed with the iPhone , Android , Windows Mobile or Blackberry , for example. The software is partly developed by the community itself and mostly offered free of charge. Desktop programs for managing and editing routes, such as SportTracks (Windows PC) or TrailRunner (Apple Mac), were also linked to the route database via the GPSies API .

In addition to the manual setting of individual route points or waypoints , the route editor from GPSies also enabled automatic routing , which was implemented using GraphHopper technology. As a map basis, the user could choose between many representations (street, satellite, topographic map): OpenStreetMap , Google Maps , Nokia Maps . The altitude data for the route were determined in real time using the STRM data stored on the GPSies server and displayed graphically.

GPSies.com supported the OpenStreetMap (OSM) community with its routes . The users could make their own routes available to the free map project of OSM with a click of the mouse. In July 2019, GPSies was in 6th place in the Top 50 users for uploads of GPS data from OpenStreetMap.

Web links

Open source alternative for planning routes:

swell

  1. ^ Klaus Bechtold, founder of GPSies.com
  2. ↑ Country statistics from the provider
  3. ↑ Press review of the provider
  4. ↑ WDR Leonardo: GPS - Tour planning on the PC ( Memento from November 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Focus: Fitness with satellite support
  6. ↑ c't: On the GPS trip (downloadable fee)
  7. ↑ Manager Magazin: Logged and tagged
  8. ↑ New internet portal for cyclists. Frankfurter Rundschau, October 9, 2009, accessed on April 11, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Interactive maps for fresh air fans. Nürnberger Zeitung, August 26, 2009, accessed on April 13, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Google Geo Developer Blog: Our Favorites - get Outdoors!
  11. ↑ Featured Projects on Google Code
  12. ↑ heise online: Route portal: GPSies changes into AllTrails. Retrieved July 28, 2019 .
  13. ^ Ajax framework Direct Web Remoting
  14. ↑ GPSies for iPhone
  15. ↑ GPSies for Android
  16. ↑ GPSies for Windows Mobile (RunGPS, chargeable)
  17. ↑ GPSies for Blackberry
  18. ↑ SportTracks (Windows PC)
  19. ↑ TrailRunner (Apple Mac)
  20. ^ GraphHopper
  21. ↑ OpenStreetMap: Top 50 users for uploads of GPS data