Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Where's Willy?

 http://www.whereswilly.com/
The geospatial web application that we have chosen to critique is the Where’s Willy? website that utilizes Google Maps. Where’s Willy? website is a method for people worldwide to track Canadian currency in the forms of $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 bills. Users are able to track their bills on the website to determine where the bills have travelled and how long it took them to get to each place. It is a useful application because it is connecting where money comes from and also indirectly, the people that obtain and record the money. The website is easily accessible and easy to maneuver around. People can input the necessary data about the bills such as, the serial number, their postal code, and an optional description of the condition or where it was obtained with ease. The application already knows the locations of the bills from an inputted postal code. It draws upon multiple databases that can be accessed through the original site. These databases are MySQL, PHP, and the largest one being GreatData.com.

The objectives of the geospatial web application are to monitor the values of currency that are being distributed and to observe the circulation and trends of the bills.  You can track the distance the bills have travelled, whether it is from a point A to a point B or the cumulative distance it has travelled. You can also calculate the average speed the bills were travelling at.  To conclude, Where’s Willy? is a website that monitors Canadian currency worldwide. All forms of bills can be tracked in a user-friendly manner within the website.

Ross Littlejohn
Michael Moser
Meaghan McDowell
Laura Staley