Archive for the ‘Directory’ Category
Places.ae Release Places Answering Machine (PAM)
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 10, 2008 – 3:54 pm |
3 Comments
Places.ae, the cool Dubai location based directory, previously reviewed here, have released a new interesting feature called “Places Answering Machine (PAM)”, which acts as an interface for Places.ae with other communication channels on the internet, thereby enabling users to ask Places.ae for places directly through these channels without having to visit the website.
They’ve currently launched with Google Talk and Twitter support, and more channels should be added soon.
For Google Talk users, all you have to do is add places.ae@gmail.com in your contact list then ask PAM to find you something by sending a message in the following format:
find me <something> in <area> (e.g. find me pizza in jumeirah).
You can also use a search term without an area, using find me <something>.
If you’re using Twitter, you’ll have to start following the user places_ae, and once it starts following you back, you can send it a direct message to search for a place:
d places_ae <something> in <area> (e.g. d places_ae pizza in jumeirah).
PAM is still in the beta stage, and more work is currently being put into it’s communication skills and the layout of the sent answers. But it’s still a really nice feature, worth checking out and using for quick searches.
Places.ae, Dubai’s Location Based Directory
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 2, 2008 – 11:19 am | 4 Comments
Places.ae is one of those simple, small, but very useful services that we really wish we had more of all around the Arab world.
In short, and using their own words which I think say it best, places.ae is a location based directory for Dubai.
Integrating Google Maps, the website helps you find, positioned on a map, anything in Dubai by simply asking you what you are looking for, and the neighborhood you’re looking for it in; from businesses to restaurants to clubs to hospitals to any other place you would want to go to in Dubai.
The interface is very simple and really easy to use; you start typing what you’re searching for and the website helps by giving suggestions, and then it delivers a list of nearby places sorted by how far they are from the location you typed in.
You get to click on each one of these places to see it located on a map, find how other people who have been there rate it and read their comments on it.
Users can also add other places that they know of to the website, thereby giving the community the possibility to further enrich the service.
Places.ae currently only covers Dubai, but should be adding other emirates soon. The service is free, both for users and for businesses for the time being.
This very cool service is a product of the collaboration of code.ae and spinbits.
