News
Moving Map Launched
26th September 2025
Moving Map Released to the Public
We are proud to announce Moving Maps has been opened up to the
public!
The History of Moving Map
Moving Map is a map that helps people find their ideal location. Whether it is for
renting, a long
term home or your next business place.
The ideal location isn't based off what a real estate agent tells you is ideal; it is
what matters
to you as a person.
Your interests. Your place. Your Map.
The History of Moving Map
2016 - The Idea
The idea for Moving Map was born out of a need to for a family to find a new
rental home in late
2016. Frustrated by
the inability to find a places suitable for all, an idea was made to use
Spatial Information to
narrow down the 'Ideal place' to move to.
But this was't some ideal place as dictated by Estate Agents, it was based
on our own needs and
desires. Some of us wanted to be near a supermarket, some of us wanted to be
close to Public
Transport; and so this was the answer. A rudimentary coloured map scaling
our preferences from
'Hard No' as uncoloured, 'Undesireable' as red, 'Meh if we have to' in
Yellow and finally
'Perfection' in Dark Green.
Unemployed at the time, the idea was floated of 'I wonder if this is
something I could make for
other people'. I had the skills to make the map and rudimentary knowledge of
datasources but I
didn't have the technical skills to code anything significant in order to
automate it.
2019 - The Experience
Queue a Graduate cadetship in the Spatial Industry, a thirst for knowledge and a
drive to try new
things.
This is when I started to really take off. I learned about dataset management,
data sources,
scaling in an enterprise environment, and fundamental to the entire plan, I
learned how to code;
properly.
Around August of 2019 I needed to move rentals again. I knew I had that neat
idea filed away
somewhere so I dug it out, refreshed the databases and gave it another try based
on my own
preferences of where I wanted to live next. This time, I had 3 years of industry
experiecne under
my belt and did it much faster. I started to test out making a dataset to query
some basic
features in a rather clunky html form as a proof of concept and ran it on a low
level server.
2020 - The Trial
Then the Pandemic of 2020 rose it's head and we all started to work from home. I
had a lot of
spare time on my hands so I started to work on some ideas to make my concept a
reality. I
registered Moving Map as a business in March of 2020, bought some domains and
started to develop
some scripts to get data, organise it and deliver it as a web based app.
In the process of developing these scripts I learned a few neat tricks to help
my work life become
a bit easier. My job had taught me to code, but I wanted to make things easier,
faster and more
procedural for myself. So I developed in my spare time and applied my knowledge
to real world
environments. It worked, the systems I had started to build were saving a lot of
time so I knew I
was onto something.
2023 - The Decision
In September of 2023, I quit my job where I had worked for 6 years and 11
months. It was the
biggest and one of the toughest decisions I had made. Tears were shed.
However I had a plan. Work on the App, see what I can make of it. At the same
time set up a
business so I can have a place to partition off services I had created along the
way. In January
of 2024 I founded my own business under the name of Spatiata (a portmanteau of
Spatial Data).
I used that opportunity to experiment with making a website for the first time,
from scratch,
using html, Javascript and CSS. I'd learned a little about designing in my time
working so I put
it to the test. Well I think it turned out pretty good for a first try and
launched the site on
the 28th of May 2024.
2024 - The Product
After the launch and testing of the Spatiata website, I decided to continue progress on Moving Map. I spent the next 6 months building out the entire web app. It involved everything including but not limited to:
- User Interface
- Design of Logos and Icons
- Authentication
- Database Management
- Extract, Transform and Loading of datasets
- Processing Queries
- Deploying to a server environment
Around the end of 2024 I opened the site to Beta testing with friends and family. This gave me the opportunity to refine little details, add necessary quality of life features and fix bugs.
Now that it has been released, I hope you find it useful, and if not, let me know what you'd like to see!
2025 - The Launch
After gathering valuable feedback from the closed Beta testing, I spent a few
months fixing up various bugs, improving processes, documenting systems and adding
extra functionality.
Finally in September 2025, Moving Map was ready to be open for public use.
However, this still feels like just the beginning of the adventure. I would love
to add more functionality and even more countries to the app, so please if you
have suggestions of what you would love to see in the app, let me know!
This has been a long term passion project by a single person, I hope it helps you!
What's next?
At the moment, anyone can make a map anywhere in Australia.
We are hopeful to expand to more countries over time, however some may be more difficult to
work with
than others depending on data availabiltiy etc.
to be notified when new countries or features go live!
I have more questions
Sure thing! head on over to our Contact page or click below and we will do our best to help answer them!