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It seems like a long time ago, but back in March, MapMixer (originally named “Remaps") was born as a hack project at Yahoo!. Hack Day is a 24-hour innovation fest that happens every quarter. During hack days, Yahoos take time off from their normal jobs and bring to life their inventive, crazy, new, and sometimes world-changing ideas. After the blood, sweat, and empty boxes of pizza, what's left is a “hack,” which is then presented to everyone in a two-minute demo.

That's how MapMixer was built – during 24 hours of non-stop caffeine-fueled coding. (In retrospect, this was nothing compared to what it took to get the final product out the door, but more on that later.)

First, let tell you more about where the MapMixer idea originated. As an engineer for Yahoo! Travel, maps have always been dear to me. So, I was kind of annoyed when I was visiting my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and I didn’t know where to find the visitor parking lots! Searching around the web, I found many maps that didn’t have the info I needed. Finally I found a PDF that had my info, which of course loaded the Acrobat browser plug-in and crashed my browser. (Seriously, nothing but love to Adobe, but the Acrobat browser plug-in often crashes my browser.) All I wanted was a single map with parking details. “Maybe this experience could be better?” I wondered… With that the seed for MapMixer was planted.

I decided to fix this problem for the upcoming hack day, put together a team, and built a prototype. The response was overwhelming. People got it — and loved the concept immediately. Only a couple weeks after our hack day presentation, the project was green-lighted for a public release.

Once we had the green light, we didn’t waste any time. Building MapMixer was like working at a startup, with one major difference: we had access to the amazing infrastructure already in place at Yahoo!. Our team had only two engineers full time, so we had to scrap around for part time help for all other functions.

With support from Adam Chang, a seasoned Yahoo! Travel product manager, we made rapid progress. We had to plan ahead in order to keep the several integration points with other teams internally in order. I got my hands dirty in all aspects of the product release including engineering, design, branding, marketing, legal, etc. It was an intense experience. (I regularly used the sleeping bag and 2 pillows under my desk. No kidding.)

Being able to launch MapMixer is a great feeling, and the coverage was terrific -- but the war was won by many small victories along the way. We are still fine-tuning the application and continuing to think about new ways to make it even easier to use and share.

I hope you continue to find MapMixer useful (and fun)! If you happen to have a good map you’d like to share, don’t hesitate to add it to the MapMixer collection. Check out this University of Illinois parking map or mix up one of your own:

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