This is the official announcement post for the launch of the Daily Maui Photo website.
Well, sort of.
Technically the new site launched all the way back in October ’10. And although the site itself is new, it’s technically a re-launch of the previous Maui Photo Day Calendar website from ’08. But come on, Daily Maui Photo has a much better ring to it, don’t you agree?
What’s New
Aside from a cleaner, simpler design and some new branding, the backend of the site itself has mostly been rewritten piece-by-piece over the last few months. The magic behind it all still is the Flickr API, as I described previously in my daily Facebook photo post. But while I was building the iPhone App for the new site (oh, yeah, there’s an App for that, too) I needed a cleaner way to serve up the daily photos and related info like caption, location, map coordinates, etc. So, I put together my own REST API to sit in front of my Flickr code on the server, and viola, easy integration.
The new REST API, plus an updated cache mechanism, has really help me optimize how I work with the code for these daily photos, but I’ve also been updating all my previous mini-projects out there to take advantage of it. For example, the Daily Maui Photo Facebook tab and my Google home page gadget now use this API, too. And that’s really only the beginning, and I hope to showcase more about the API I’ve built and how it’s being integrated in my other sites in future posts (as time permits).
I’m even hoping to open up the API for a few private integrations if anyone has a good idea or use for it, either with my photos or their own. If you’re reading this and thinking of something, let me know.
Your Daily Photo, The Way You Want It
More so with this new version of the site than the previous one, I’m emphasizing more on multiple options Maui fans can get their daily dose of Aloha. Smack in the middle of the site’s layout are the current options that should fill just about everyone’s needs. Here’s the rundown:
- RSS Feed – a good ol’ RSS feed for the more web and blog savvy user.
- Daily Email – a more friendlier option for those out there (unlike me) who don’t already have 1,000’s of emails filling their inbox. And it’s powered by Feedburner, so I have to do 0 maintenance on the mailing list. Nice.
- Facebook Page – of course, Facebook. Rather than create a new Facebook page just for these photos, I just left it integrated into the existing Maui by Photo page.
- @DailyMauiPhoto on Twitter – last of the standard items, a new branded Twitter handle and another “go get ’em” initiative to build up a new set of followers.
- iPhone App – I already mentioned the iPhone App, but why not put it here, too. Android version in the works, too, and if someone out there wanted to buy me an iPad, I have ideas for a separate version there, too. 😉
- Google home page gadget – and finally, the little guy that started this whole thing.
That’s a decent-sized list, and there are even more features in the works, too. Now you can start to picture why this blog post announcement is 3 months late. 😛
As those new features are released, I’ll do my best to post the specifics here on the blog. It might not be a bad idea, however, to tag along on Facebook if you’re a Maui fan or would just like to see this concept grows further. After all, would one of these Maui photos in your News Feed each morning really be a bad thing?
– Kris
