May 20, 1996 - Peter Sklar and Cole C. Coleman dialed into their local Santa Barbara, CA ISP to
register the domain name coolmaps.com. Their dream was to create a map-based store locator service for
nationwide retailers and banks. They had just finished a consulting assignment in which they built a website
for listing commercial real estate properties. For that site, they had created a real-time
map generation component that they thought was pretty darn cool.
.... cool + maps = coolmaps
June 1996: Peter and Cole out to change the world.
September 6, 1996 - Peter and Cole file their first patent application to protect their innovative
technique for enabling web users to drill-down into maps and other database information.
Cluster User Interface
"A user is presented with a display map from which the user selects database records of
interest. For the records which are in range of the display map's limits, a cluster evaluator groups
some of the records into clusters. On the display map, unclustered records are represented by item icons,
while clusters are represented by cluster icons. If a user selects an item icon, the associated record is
selected and a predetermined action is taken. If a cluster icon is selected, the display map is "zoomed in"
to show greater detail around the cluster. Typically, a number of clustered records become unclustered
records when the zooming occurs, because the clustering criteria is sharpened. The user can iteratively
select clusters, resulting in greater and greater detail, until the user selects an item icon and the
predetermined action is taken with that record"
November 13, 1996 - Sanwa Bank of California signs-on as coolmaps.com's first customer.
March 3-6, 1997 - coolmaps.com teams up with Expertelligence (at the time their WebBase product
was the top competitor to Allaire's Cold Fusion) at Spring Internet World in Los Angeles to show off its innovative database search interface
called Interactive Discovery.
April 21, 1997 - Sanwa Bank of California branch locator goes live on the bank's website.
Soon to follow were branch locators for Union Bank of California, and City National Bank.
April 1997 -> today: Sanwa Bank locator and its clickable icons
