Situation
Semantic Press has developed a framework for rapidly developing data-centric web services. The company’s mission is to link together large and disparate data sources, and use contextual search tools to build web services on top of the information.
Company founder Terry Martin believes that there is almost unlimited potential in applying these web services to vertical markets, as well as to take them mobile. “Take Opentable.com for example. It’s a great service that lets you search for restaurants and make reservations online. Well, think of Semantic Press as allowing you to build your own OpenTable network, allowing people to search menus, nutritional info, etc. Are you in the mood for a low fat hamburger? With Semantic Press, you could find one that has blue cheese and bacon in your neighborhood, then reserve a table.
The Problem
Terry began developing a nationwide automotive part search service that links more than 5,000 retailers with consumers. The automotive recycling industry typically uses a standardized system, called Hollander Interchange, to syndicate inventories across North America and perform cross compatible referencing.
The challenge for Semantic Press was to convert natural search queries to a standardized system and enable users to tap into the millions of parts that are available at discounted prices.
Allowing people to do this on the iPhone wasn’t easy. After spending a lot of time and money developing the application in Objective-C, they didn’t have a commercially viable application. “We ended up pulling the plug on the Objective-C application. After spending thousands of dollars on development, the application didn’t perform the way we wanted it to.”
Titanium Speeds iPhone Development
Terry discovered Titanium and started developing alongside his Objective-C developer. “I was shocked – I was outpacing the Objective-C developer ten-to-one with Titanium. My colleague was shocked, too, because he’s a 15-year Apple veteran and knows Cocoa inside and out.”
The company started using Titanium as a way to rapid prototype their UI and interact with the back-end web services. Within 60 development hours they had a functioning program, and they’ve been able to quickly revise and test different UIs as they gain more understanding about their users’ mobile behavior and intent.
“We immediately cut out 80% of our development time compared to Objective-C, which allowed us to focus on value creation.”
The Future of Titanium in Semantic Press
Semantic Press plans to add e-commerce capabilities to the application, which will generate a transactional revenue stream for Semantic Press and network partners. Additionally, Titanium will be used for rapid cross platform development. Now that they’ve proven the concept with this application for the automotive market, Semantic Press will move into other verticals.
“Titanium is the perfect mobile platform for the kind of data-centric web applications we create. This is really just an example of what is possible when you can converge geo-spatial web services and mobile apps.“
Moving forward Semantic Press will be approaching brand owners, media organizations and data providers who can help build out a distributed network of linked data. They will also be rolling out various local social search apps for verticals, such as real estate, automotive, hospitality, manufacturing and retail.
