创业除了需要天时地利外，人和亦同样重要。现于软件公司任CEO的余建军，早在7年前于西安交通大学修读工程力学硕士课程时，已凭借设计网络地图软件而名噪一时，并获得当地政府60万元投资。但他与当时一班同学群体创业的热情却随着该投资计划而完结，不足1年便消失殆尽。最后余建军选择落户上海，总结往日教训重新开始创业之旅，现时其开发的软件，已经远销海内外50多个国家和地区，并曾用于电影《哈利波特》和《木马屠城》的场景设计中。他笑言，「创业的好处就是做1年，比别人工作5年甚至10年学到的东西都要多。」
初尝甜头 惜曲终人散
2000年的科网热潮，让远在古城西安念书的余建军领略到其火爆性。当时他在一间网络公司兼职，对程序设计有所了解，于是「胆粗粗」地召集几个同学，成立了大海信息公司，开发「仿真城市」地图，只要用户点击地图上某个地点，便有该地的图片弹出。
这种新鲜的视图方式在西安城引起轰动，西安某区政府还主动向余建军的公司投资超过60万元。余建军指当时大家风光无比，甚至APEC的官员到访西安，亦被政府推荐到他们公司参观。当时凭着创业初期的热情，余建军1个月只拿800多元薪水，每日中午开始工作直到次日早上天亮，然后在街头吃几串羊肉串，便倍感「幸福」地回家。
但几个月后，60万元钱「烧完」后，这群「企业家」便解散了。余建军总结教训说，学生创业往往只是为实现某个单纯的想法，完全没有营销的概念。他亦从中意识到要把设计「产品化」，才能成功将之推广到国内外市场。
再战浦东 公司上轨道
2001年9月，出生于南方的余建军凭着对上海的亲切感，来到当时正被炒得火爆的浦东软件园，成立上海杰图软件公司。他与合作者的开发项目仍是全景展示软件，通过行业网站、讨论区等渠道进行宣传推广后，软件月销售量从10多个倍增至逾30个。随着产品升级，余建军还将产品价格从100美元逐渐提高至1,000多美元。
去年余建军开始尝试「城市吧」实景地图项目，将全景技术应用于电子地图领域，构建起网上「虚拟城市」。公司为上海所制作的实景地图，还被上海市政府网站采用，全景软件还被用于刑侦(案件现场三维重现)、消防(灭火预警系统)、场景设计等方面。
余建军坦言刚创业时常常犯错，比如不了解软件开发的流程，难以控制软件开发的成本和周期。别人数个月完成的事情，他们往往要花1年时间。不过他总结经验后，现时公司运作已经自如，预计今年的销售额将达到1,000万元，明年还将提升至2,000万元。 详见：http://paper.wenweipo.com/2007/11/23/HK0711230058.htm
“中国创业投资价值榜”是由《第一财经日报》主办，纵横合力联合主办的年度投融资界颁奖盛典。作为中国金融财经领域的核心媒体，《第一财经日报》以推动中国资本市场发展为目标，以宣传报道投资风向为己任，设立此奖项的目的是为了促进产业界更多的了解资本市场，与资本市场融合发展。颁奖典礼于2007年11月22日召开，城市吧获选“最具潜力企业50强”，见http://finance.sina.com.cn/hy/20071122/18414205933.shtml
Online mapmakers get down to earth
来源：Sydney Morning Herald
作者：Stephen Hutcheon
时间：2007年10月29日
Using home-grown technology, a Chinese firm has upstaged the likes of Google and Microsoft with a mapping service featuring 360-degree street-level imaging of extraordinarily high resolution.
The service, which is similar to features found on Google's and Microsoft's online mapping sites, presently covers eight Chinese cities - including the capital Beijing and Shanghai.
The company behind the technology, Shanghai-based Easypano Holdings, is working on expanding the coverage of its City8 website to another 12 cities by the end of the year, according to company spokeswoman Carol Yang.
It's part of a trend in online mapping towards providing users with ground-level shots to complement the satellite and aerial imaging that is already widely available.
The City8 imaging was captured by special multi-lensed cameras mounted on cars which cruise the streets - and even some of the back alleys - of major Chinese cities capturing million of images.
The process is almost identical to the one used by Google, which has been using technology licensed from Canada-based Immersive Media.
These photographs are stitched together using software developed by Easypano and the result is a near seamless tapestry of ground-level images which can be zoomed, panned 180 degrees vertically and 360 degrees on the horizontal.
"We have nine patents approved or pending [for the process]," said Ms Yang in an email interview.
City8 was formed in 2005 and rolled out its first street-level images in July 2006 - almost one year before the launch of the Google equivalent, called Street View.
Ms Yang said Easypano, which has a staff of about 70, was established in 2001 and is privately owned.
The company is headed by 31-year-old Yu Jianjun who with several of his university classmates formed a company offering a 3-D chat room service in the late '90s.
That later morphed into Easypano which today specialises in panorama and virtual tour software. Intel and Siemens are among some 700 enterprise customers using the software.
Ms Yang said the image maps comprised 90 per cent "or more" of the streets in the cities that have been databased. As a result it can take up to three months to photograph bigger cities like Beijing and Shanghai and sometimes that means you can get summer and winter images on the same stretch of road.
Like Google Maps, users can also add their own tags to the image maps. "For example, after I go to some restaurant, I can add a tag on the restaurant on City8, and comment about the food," said Ms Yang, "In this way [it also] becomes an interactive platform for users."
Unlike Google's Street View, Ms Yang said Easypano had not yet received complaints from people wanting their photographs blurred or removed.
And she said the company is heading off any future privacy issues by developing an application that will automatically "remove" the faces of all people whose photographs appear on the site.
One catch: the site is in Chinese, except for a small English-language demo the company has put up. Unlike the full working site, the demo page does not allow a user to enlarge the street image to full-screen mode.
Launched in May, Google's Street View feature now covers 11 US cities. Microsoft also has a similar service called Street Side. Launched in 2006, it still only covers two US cities.
余建军 将城市搬到网上
来源：中国信息化
作者：穆琳琳
时间：2007年10月20日
今年31岁的余建军不尽符合外界对于创业成功人士的想象:不张扬,略显沧桑,言谈中露出一丝腼腆，笑起来又带着几分可爱;媒体“曝光率”很高，但非常清楚自己要做什么。余建军的手下对他们年轻的老总有这样的评价：工作的时候看到余总，他总是眼睛发光,精神抖擞的样子。
余建军的名气缘于他所创立的“城市吧”: 将全景技术应用于电子地图领域，构建起一个虚拟的城市。大到上海的南京路、北京的王府井,小到居住小区、车站牌,网民都能实现网上实景浏览,如身临其境一般。目前,“城市吧”已经覆盖了北京、上海、深圳、广州等8个城市,计划年底城市数达到20个。这样的模式在国内甚至在国外也是首开先河之举。 中国互联网在地图上的一个历史性突破就是从二维转换到了三维，“城市吧”就是其中的典范之一,余建军也因此被众多媒体追捧为新经济代表人物之一。今年,“城市吧”
到
