More hopefully useful and informative Location Scout Online Resources
Yahoo Pipes Web Application by Yahoo for the Location Scout
Several website posts which pertain to Yahoo Pipes and possibly relate to location scouting.
UPDATE 2019: Pipes is no more! (Wikipedia)
About Pipes
Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web.
Like Unix pipes, simple commands can be combined together to create output that meets your needs:
- combine many feeds into one, then sort, filter and translate it.
- geocode your favorite feeds and browse the items on an interactive map.
- power widgets/badges on your web site.
- grab the output of any Pipes as RSS, JSON, KML, and other formats.
Location Scout Resource – find coffee near wherever you are – FAST
For some people, especially those that travel frequently, it might be incredibly useful to be able to easily find coffee nearby.
Location Scout Tagosphere Pipe
Get an RSS feed centered around a tag
Well, this all might sound a bit “techy” to some, but Yahoo Pipes can be incredibly useful for retrieving and displaying data; this is an example how a Yahoo Pipe can be used to retrieve internet pages based on tags
Tag (metadata) – Wikipedia
In information systems, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item’s creator or by its viewer, depending on the system.
Tagging was popularized by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature of many Web 2.0 services. It is now also part of some desktop software.
Yahoo Pipes – Wikipedia
Yahoo! Pipes is a web application from Yahoo! that provides a graphical user interface for building data mashups that aggregate web feeds, web pages, and other services, creating Web-based apps from various sources, and publishing those apps. The application works by enabling users to “pipe” information from different sources and then set up rules for how that content should be modified (for example, filtering). A typical example is New York Times through Flickr,[1] a pipe which takes The New York Times RSS feed and adds a photo from Flickr based on the keywords of each item. Other than the pipe edition page, the website has a documentation page and a discussion page. Documentation page contains information about pipes, a user guide on pipe edition and a troubleshooting guide. The discussion page enables users to discuss the pipes with other users. The site is currently in beta.
That said, the Tagosphere Pipe can be used to retrieve and display website content from around the internet for the tag(s) “location scout” – depending on the taxonomies used by different websites / software, more results might be returned by trying different variations of the tag (with / without quotation marks?), such as “location-scout”, “location+scout”, “location_scout” and “locationscout”.
- What is the Tagosphere – Library Notes
- Tagosphere Pipe Example
- Tagosphere Pipe RSS Feed | “location+scout”
- Read about another interesting Pipe
- Tagosphere Yahoo Pipe Feed – location scout
Location Scout del.icio.us TagMasher
…yet another adventure in deploying lightweight do-it-yourself (DIY) tech solutions inna location scoutin’ bidness.
The title says it all. I was looking for a way to aggregate (collect) bookmarks (…favorites…posts) on del.icio.us that are most relevant to location scouting.
Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that a search of tags such as “location scout” would be in order.
- There are several del.icio.us-specific peculiarities
that make this a more complicated task than it might seem on the surface: Because of the way del.icio.us handles tags, multiple word phrases (i.e. location scout) must be joined together so there are no spaces between the words, otherwise “location” and “scout” become two different tags. Obviously there are a number of ways to accomplish this; I decided that:
- “locationscout“
- “location+scout“
- “location-scout“
- “location_scout“
…were likely to be the most popular syntaxes.
Also the mashup I found to aggregate the bookmarks has a 4-tag limit (more about this shortly), so, given the parameters, the syntaxes above dovetailed into the plan pretty smoothly.
Tag searching using the del.icio.us website interface is limited to just one tag. I needed to find a way to search del.icio.us using multiple tags at once.
Enter Yahoo Pipes. Pipes is a recent “whatsit?” (to me, anyway 😉 …all I know is it will “do stuff” using various web2.0 features such as accessing and interfacing with various API’s, databases and such and that there has been a good deal of chatter in the tech circles lately about Pipes. It does look a little like Ning, but I haven’t had a chance to play with Pipes at all other than this little side-project. (BTW some people think I am a bit of a techy, but it’s not true; real techies are always able to see that I am just someone who knows enough to be annoying and dangerous- just ask my web host 😉
In a nutshell, “someone” (one Derek Van Vliet, actually…) figured out how search del.icio.us using 4 tags simultaneously as well as aggregating the results. The results are effective because they consist of posts that only had to use at least *one* of the tags as opposed to a heavily filtered list including only posts having to use all the tags, the former seeming to be the default of many database searches. Yet, still, the Pipe seemed to handle filtering out “noise” results such as “boy scout” or “store location”, etc. very well. 🙂
…which I renamed slightly to reflect the manner in which I am using the pipe, which is ok because all this kind of stuff in this neck of cyberspace is pretty open-source and in fact experimentation is generally encouraged.
Once I ran the Pipe and had my results (a web page exportable as an rss xml feed, of course 🙂 like any good web2.0 app should…)
I took the feed link and made a Feedburner feed. I like Feedburner because there are so many additional features available that can be used on raw rss feeds. If you have worked with Feedburner much at all, you’ll know what I am talking about.
While I was setting up the Feedburner feed, I set up a WidgetBox, which is the box below and which is used to display the feed here on this website.
What? of course, these are all free web services. (Altho, not provided by me)
Update I also used the tags “locationscouting“, “location+scouting“, “location-scouting” and “location_scouting” on del.icio.us Tag Masher – 4 Tags Pipe.
- del.icio.us Tag Masher – 4 Tags with tags locationscouting, location+scouting, location-scouting, location_scouting (Derek van Vliet’s original)
- del.icio.us Tag Masher – 4 Tags with tags locationscouting, location+scouting, location-scouting, location_scouting (my clone)
Feedburner Feed made from Derek’s Pipe w/ tags applied:
del.icio.us :: TagMasher locationscouting Feed
Yahoo Feed of my clone
Location Scouting – Location Management News
This page updates regularly with excerpts of news related to location scouting and location management for production for film / photo / video / television.
The graphic below was created using Yahoo Pipes and although innovative in concept, I have had little luck so far getting it to work on a consistent basis and only then with a considerable amount of code tweaking which is not my forte or an activity I have any desire whatsoever to spend any significant amount of time being involved with.
Suffice to say, I’d rather be out location scouting.
Resources media resources used in the creation of the aforementioned Pipe include:
Yahoo Pipes at Amazon
Location Scout Technorati + Other Sources
Preface: This post is not so much about doing actual location scouting work using the internet*, but rather finding online content that other location scouts might be posting around the internet or other published content on the subject of location scouting. So I guess it is, in way, but not really?
About Technorati
Technorati was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation. Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has expanded to a full service media company providing services to the blogs and social media sites and connecting them with advertisers who want to join the conversation, and whose online properties introduce blog content to millions of consumers.
Technorati – Wikipedia
Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google, Yahoo and IceRocket. As of December 2007, Technorati indexes over 112 million weblogs. The name Technorati is a portmanteau, pointing to the technological version of literati or intellectuals.
Technorati has received some criticism recently surrounding some of its activities (see Technorati Wikipedia page), however, there is no arguing with an index of 112 million blogs, someone is using their services…
To find blog posts, photos and online video about a given subject, do a search on the Technorati home page using terms pertaining to the subject you are seeking information about.
Technorati relies relies heavily on the “tags” taxonomy hence when results returned from a basic Technorati search, the url will contain the following structure:
…technorati.com/tag/subject
Search results page for “location scouting” is https://technorati.com/tag/location+scouting
If you are an internet content author and wish to have your content show up in Technorati results you may wish to note Technorati uses the “+ sign” separator for multi word search term phrases.
Sam Rohn and I post a lot online on the subject of location scouting, so you are likely to find a lot of results from our websites in the Technorati index.
In addition to Google‘s ongoing indexing of general web content, Google Blog Search indexes blogs specifically and is a direct competitor for Technorati’s audience.
Here is the results page for a Google Blog search using the search phrase “location scouting”.
Google Blog Search has gained some popularity recently, an example being that the very popular blogging software, WordPress recently switched to Google Blog Search as the default source for incoming links on the administration dashboards of WordPress hosted blogs and user-hosted blogs.
I am not that familiar with Ice Rocket, altho I do know they have been around for some time and I am pretty sure Ice Rocket is one of the many default blog indexing services pinged by WordPress’s (Automattic) Pingomatic service. (If you havent noticed, I rely on WordPress quite a bit as the website platform for all my websites). The WordPress / Automattic group carries quite a bit of cred with me, so I am sort of like, “if they think it’s good, then it must be”.
…so, here is a blog search for “location scouting” using Ice Rocket…
Yahoo has a blog search engine as well, but frankly, it seems a little weak – at least one review calls Yahoo’s Blog Search “not much more than a quick add-on to Yahoo News”. In any case, here are results of a Yahoo Blog Search for “location scouting”.
A while back I made a post on nyc.locationscout.us about a Yahoo Pipe I found called del.icio.us Tag Masher that aggregates bookmark results using 4 different search terms which always returns some informative results. I’d like to find a mashup that delivers aggregated results from Technorati, Google Blog Search, Ice Rocket, Yahoo and del.icio.us.
* You can find other content on nyc.locationscout.us regarding useful online tools for location scouting, try clicking the following tags on the nyc.locationscout.us archives page in the tag cloud (or just use the links below)
The search box (also located on the home page) provides nyc.locationscout.us site-wide search results of content contained on the site.
Location Scout R. Richard Hobbs Feedage Feeds
– FeedAge Group – Location Scouting
Lots of browser-readable content feeds from my sites and other rss-enabled sources
About FeedAge
Feedage is a free, fully categorized and searchable RSS directory. Our mission is to categorize the large number of RSS data feeds available to make it easier for you to find and subscribe to the content you are interested in.
Feedage currently contains RSS, XML, OPML, RDF and Atom feeds. These are the most common syndication formats.Feedage currently contains RSS, XML, OPML, RDF and Atom feeds. These are the most common syndication formats.
RSS, XML, OPML, RDF and Atom Feeds – Wikipedia
RSS – Wikipedia
RSS Rich Site Summary (originally RDF Site Summary, often dubbed Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.
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XML – Wikipedia
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards.
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OPML – Wikipedia
OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines (defined as “a tree, where each node contains a set of named attributes with string values”). Originally developed by UserLand as a native file format for the outliner application in its Radio UserLand product, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.
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RDF – Wikipedia
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a family of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) specifications originally designed as a metadata data model. It has come to be used as a general method for conceptual description or modeling of information that is implemented in web resources, using a variety of syntax formats.
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Atom – Wikipedia
The name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub or APP) is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.
BizBash Location Scout Archive & News
BizBash, an event-planning resource website, has recently begun a series on its different city and regional websites, which include New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Florida and Toronto entitled BizBash Location Scout Archive (link is for New York- Location Scout Archive for other cities can be found under the “Venues” tab(s) on each city’s respective website).
The Location Scout Archives showcase interesting and / or remarkable local venues as well as including relevant featurette stories of interest to event and party planners, i.e. What Event Planners Want, all in a “blog” type format.
As a New York City area based location scout, I find the series interesting and valuable as I often receive requests for locations for film, video and photo shoots that might include public venues such as restaurants / bars, catering halls and other types of venues such as perhaps, museums or private clubs and it is always good to keep abreast of what’s opening (or closing) as well as “what’s hot or not”.
Occasionally I receive requests for locations for corporate events as well.
Related | BizBash RSS Feeds
- New York
- LA
- Washington
- Florida
- Toronto
- National (U.S.)
Corporate Event Planning at Amazon
Location Scout Resource: Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI)
Not everybody knows about the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) …or even what a film commission (or film office) is. 😉
A film commission (or film office) is a bureau or office set up by (or perhaps in partnership wth) a local government by a group of interested parties to facilitate promoting their area for use by various visual arts industries, which could include film, video / television, theater, radio, music, professional talent (actors, models), hotels and hospitality – even the local dry cleaners! For the sake of brevity for the rest of this article lets just say “filmmaking” or “film industry”.
The obvious main reasons for attracting filmmaking are for local economic development and general promotion of the arts. Conventional wisdom dictates that the more money changing hands with more hands (economy) the better off the community is and prevalence of the arts in any community makes that community generally more “livable”.
In addition to a being considered a relatively environmentally “clean” industry, filmmaking normally requires considerable local support from many other peripheral industries and businesses to function, as well being “people intensive”, thus creating local jobs and business opportunities.
There is simply no better way to showcase a community than for the world to to “see it in pictures”.
Sometimes local tourism boards double as film offices for many of the reasons above.
The best way for a local film office to promote filmmaking is to do everything it can to streamline the production process for filmmakers and location scouts, so the more working knowledge a film office has of typical challenges productions face, the more effective the film office can be in making their area attractive to filmmakers.
There are a number of ways for film offices to help production; some of the more easily recognisable ways might be:
- Creating financial incentives such as tax breaks and negotiating discounts with local businesses.
- Advocating cooperation by local government and law enforcement as well as local business and individuals.
- Assisting in hands-on aspects of production coordination such as determining availability of and assisting in procurement of local crew, talent, (which could involve interaction with unions, equipment specific to filmmaking, locations and location scouting, transportation and local amenities.
I hope all this gives you some idea of what business an article about film commissions has being on a location scouting website (this *is* a location scouting website, after all ;-).
More specifically, if you are a property owner, if you are interested in having your property used for filming, besides local location scouts, (more prevalent locally in larger metro areas) your local or state film office(s) can assist you in promoting your property to filmmakers. As a location scout, I might list your property as well.
For production folks, a local film office should be one of your first calls when researching or when you are in the early planning stages for a project. Local film offices are an all-too-often overlooked, generally free, resource.
Association of Film Commissioners International exists to provide communication and exchanges of ideas between film commissions worldwide and as such is a very good resource for finding and contacting same.
Location Scout Resource: Park Locations
About.com – Movies Filmed at National & State Park Locations
National Park Service – Wikipedia
The National Park Service (NPS) is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act.
National Park Service at Amazon
Location Scout Portal locamundo.com – Locamundo: First Stop for Location Research
118 professionals in 44 countries have joined knowledge, expertise and locations to form the biggest reliable location network in the world. No hassle : it’s time-saving and inspiring. Ask us. It’s in here !
Locamundo.com is the meeting place where location scouts gather around and promote their business and locations. You who seek locations will find lots of reputable location finders that will give you the best possible service.
…read more…
Location Scout Location Library Milestone
Back in June I hit the 3,000 locations online mark!
- nyc.locationscout.us Locamundo Location Database
- Locamundo is a wholly owned subsidiary of LocationExchange CVBA
News: Location Scout Locamundo Book
The handsome 2005 Locamundo Book which features my work as well as the work of other location professionals from all over the world is now available. Please click thru the link the below for more info:
When you buy the book you get free 2 week access to Locamundo.com and its world wide database of film location professionals and their locations for film, tv and photo.
Users of nyc.locationscout.us Location Scout & Location Manager R. Richard Hobbs can now view a mobile version of the website
on most popular smartphones and tablets such as iPhone and Android. No special url or equipment adjustments are required – you can simply surf to on your internet-enabled mobile device and the website should display in a format fitted to vaious mobile device screens; i.e. Android (smartphones and tablets), iPhone, iPads, Blackberries, etc.
Availability of nyc.locationscout.us in a mobile format makes it faster and easier for producers, directors, assistant directors, production designers and other location scouts and location managers to access the content on nyc.locationscout.us when on location, traveling or anywhere else out-of-office when a traditional desktop or laptop computer monitor is not available.
update: the site should now load automatically in mobile format on smartphones and tablets.
