Announcing the alpha release of mancunia.mobi
macunia.mobi - it’s Manchester on your mobile phone.
It’s a project I’ve been working on for a few months, ever since I found out I’d be moving to Manchester. It’s based on the Molly Project, which is the open source framework that powers Mobile Oxford, the site I worked on in my last job. It’s still very much in an alpha phase – the UI is still “stock” Molly and it’s a bit thin on the feature ground, but I wanted to get it out there to get interest in the project.
So what can it do right now?
Bus and tram timetables for all of Manchester
What do I want it to do? Much, much more – open library search, better event listings, rail departure info, real-time tram info, etc… But to get all this, I need help:
- Better hosting (this is currently on a spare box – and it can’t stay there for long, but it’s memory hungry, so living on shared hosting isn’t right for it)
- Designers! I made the logo, and it shows. I want to get people with a creative flair to give their input, and even better if they love HTML5, because the wider Molly Project is building a HTML5 frontend, so there’s plenty of opportunity to get involved
- Developers! There’s lots of work undergoing with the Molly 2.0 redesign, so if you love coding, and have some spare time to help improve an open-source project, then we’d love for you to get involved – Molly’s a fairly easy codebase to get to grips with.
This is just a soft launch, for me the killer app will be real time tram info, but in the mean time – it’s here, and it’s ready to go, for timetabled bus info. I invite feedback!
Hi Chris
Fascinated to read the How-do article on mancunia.mobi . Congratulations on the mobi-site so far it’s knock out and already very feature rich. Wondered if you could mail me to arrange a coffee as I think there might be some opportunity to collaborate. We produce a lot of the creative branding for MediaCityUK (have just completed their mobile site) and would be happy to take a look at the design / styling for you.
However – we’re also working on a mobile ticketing application at the moment (specifically designed for the public transport sector) which could be the icing on top of the cherry on top of the cake – and a means to commercialise the mancunia.mobi site.
Be good to compare notes if you can spare time for a coffee. Congratulations again on a fab site.
Thanks Jon, I’ve dropped you an e-mail