Blog Archive

Friday, September 29, 2006

Starbucks Google Maps Mashup (Worldwide)

+ = Starbucks.. Mapped!

We've hit the motherload of Google Maps mashups with this one! Mississauga, Ontario based Pentura Solutions has created one of the coolest Google Maps mashups I've seen yet: All Starbucks locations from around the world! Residing on their FindByClick site this mashup is combining Google Maps with a database of 9,900 store locations from across the planet! Pan the Google Map around, zoom in and out or jump to a specific city from the provided list to find that next grande __insert 10 specifications here_.. latte! :) Pentura will be releasing a mobile version of this app sometime in the fall as well. For those of you that travel internationally, or live in a country where there are not many Starbucks locations this is an ultimate store locator tool to get your next fix! Enjoy! :)
[Digg it!]

For those Canadian readers be sure to also check the Tim Hortons locator!

New York Post Page Six "Google" Star Map

Following in the footsteps of Gawker Stalker, The New York Post has added a Google Maps mashup to their newly redesigned site which allows you to browse or add celeb sightings in New York City. It's called The Celebrity Star Map From the site: "..Any A-listers in your neighborhood? Find out who has been spotted doing the inane or insane around Manhattan." Browse the map by day or submit a sighting of your own. [Via Moko.Labs]

Another new Celeb Maps mashup is this Google Map of the Ten Most Trustworthy Celebrities. Virender Ajmani created the map after Forbes put out an article on the topic recently. Each pin on the map is a Google Video or YouTube clip of the ranked star.

Other Celeb Maps:
Gawker Stalker
Vancouver Celeb Map
Hollywood Hotels Exposed
Spotted .At Celeb Mashup
Top 99 World Female Stars

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Google Maps Wallpapers

Looking for a new desktop background? Choose one of these cool Google Maps wallpaper backgrounds from EarthWallPapers.net:

Right click on these Flickr-hosted images to set one of them as your desktop wallpaper (various sizes are available). The creators of this growing collection of "Map-backs" are from Soap Creative, the Aussie design house that brought us the X-Men 3 Movie Maps mashup..
[Thanks for the tip Lucas!]

Google Map of America's Drunkest Cities

Last month Forbes Magazine put out an indepth special report titled: "The Business of Nightlife". As a part of this report David M. Ewalt takes a look at America's Drunkest Cities based on state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism (More on the methodology here).

Virender Ajmani (mashup creator behind US News by zip and others) has taken the list of cities from the report and created a Google Maps mashup of America's Drunkest Cities. It combines the 5 lists so you can visually plot the cities from Ewalt's article on a Google Map of the US. To add insult to injury Virender adds a Google Maps link for each city that displays nearby pubs! Who knows, maybe this will affect the rankings for the next time the survey is done!
[Forbes gives this one a hat-tip]

Digg this! :)

Related Mashups:
The Beer Mapping Project
All-Things Beer Map
Ontario BeerHunter
Wines and Times
Other Beer & Wine Mashups..

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Australia Google Maps Mashup Roundup!

"Go Do Australia" Tourism Mashup - Godo (.com.au) is a fantastic Australian travel and tourism site that lets you browse a wide range of activities and make online bookings. This is great for the budget traveler that is planning as he/she goes or for Australian residents looking for weekend or holiday activities. Godo has integrated Google Maps into the browsing and booking experience by plotting the activities on a Google Map. You reach the Google Map after choosing the state from the main page. [via]

Colour Sydney Street Photographs (Click on: "click here to dive straight in!") - Andrew Nemeth has taken some awesome photos around the Sydney area and geocoded them to their location on Google Maps. This map (follow the instructions above to find the map) will show you all the photos. Click on the picture in the info window to view them in full size. There are some fantastic shots of Sydney life here. The mapping of the photos allows you to visualize where each picture is taking place.

Awesome Sydney Panoramic Views (Click on: "click here to dive straight in!") - Andrew Nemeth has also been busy taking panoramic movies as well. This map shows all VR panoramic views and their mapped location in the Sydney area. Included in this map of VR-views (follow the instructions above to find the map) are panoramics taken on the set of the Superman Returns movie! The Sydney Opera House is the best in my opinion! :)

New Google Maps Real Estate Mashups:
Realestate (.com.au) [via]
MyPackage (.com.au) [via]
More Australian Real Estate Mashups

Sydney Morning Herald reports on nude sunbather found on Google Maps/Earth - I caught a great article from Online Technology Editor Stephen Hutcheon of the Sydney Morning Herald this past week that covers the infamous nude sunbather that has been discovered on Google Maps/Earth (Note: the image is better on Earth than Maps). The ball got rolling with this post from GoogleSightseeing which was then severely digged. Stephen brings proper journalism principals to the human interest story in this fantastic article that brings us even more information about the imagery. He's even created a short clip that is available on YouTube that shows you where the person is located. Watch it here..

EarthWallpapers - More on this in a later post, but Lucas Ng from Domain.com.au tells me a few Sydney guys made this one..
RememberTheMilk - Web 2.0 task manager site recently integrated with Google Maps. This site is produced in Australia.
Check out my last Australian Google Maps Mashup Roundup!

Google Transit Planner rolls out to 5 more US cities


Back on December 7th, 2005 Google unveiled The Google Transit Trip Planner. The personal urban planning tool is essentially a transit mashup of Google Maps and the local transit authority in each city. At the time this tool was first introduced it was only available for Portland. Today this Google Maps based transit tool is, as promised, rolling out to more US cities. These cities include:
Here is a description from the site:
Google Transit Trip Planner enables you to enter the specifics of your trip - —where you're starting, where you're ending up, what time of day you'd like to leave and/or arrive - —then uses all available public transportation schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible step-by-step itinerary. You can even compare the cost of your trip with the cost of driving the same route!

There is a great FAQ that will help you make further use of this tool as well. Perhaps this tool will one day become a part of the core Google Maps service (Maps, Directions, Businesses... Transit). Another natural progression for a service like this would be toward Google Maps for Mobile..

Other coverage and perspective on this can be found on Search Engine Journal, KOMOTV News, and the The Pittsburgh Channel.

Other Transit Planning Tools (Not created by Google itself):

Mashing up history on Google Maps

Mashing up places of historical significance on a Google Map is one of the most interesting developments in the area of historical research. Now people everywhere can create their own historical maps and use them to explore their surroundings and develop a greater sense of awareness of what took place nearby.

The Historical Marker Database is a great new history maps mashup which presents historical marker locations and distances between each other for locations in the US and Canada. Markers are plaques and signposts that explain what significant event took place in that exact spot. HMDB lets you choose historical markers by category (a huge list) or by state or Canadian province. Each event page has a great description of the event with a "Map" or "Click for a map" link that plots that historical point. HMDB also lets create your own historical marker for your local area! These types of mashups have great use in the area of tourism and also for educational purposes!

Other Great History Maps:
More History Maps here..

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Google Maps + Indeed.com = JobMaps

+
= !

JobMaps.us is the result of taking the Google Maps API and putting it to work mashing up jobs listed on the Indeed.com US job search site. The geo developer behind JobMaps appears to be Pete Freitag who posted this to his blog on September 11th (the day he launched the mashup). To see the job map in action simply enter your job title and location to plot results to a Google Map. When you click on the job label you're linked through to Indeed to see more details. This mashup has a cool map centering tool that brings you to the flashing map pin when rolling over search results. Pretty cool. Indeed is a mashup of its own, aggregating millions of jobs "from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages" It even allows you to add your own jobs for free.

Other Google Job Maps Mashups:
SimplyHired.com
Jobloft Canada
Jobster
Other Job Mashups..

Big News: Google Maps street maps for ALL of Brasil!

+

The Google Maps API Blog reports that street maps are now available for Brasil!

From the post (:
Welcome to an exciting new world of online maps for Brasil, where we have recently added road data for the entire country. That's right! Now you can see all major highways, roads in hybrid mode as well as parks, water, landmarks and other attractions. Check out Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. While the Google Maps API doesn't yet support full address search or business search in Brasil, users can search for any major city in Brasil. With this exciting news, we wanted to give Google Maps API developers a head start on building cool Brasil mashups.

Brasil joins the US, Canada, Japan, UK & Ireland (and most other parts of Europe), Australia and New Zealand as countries with street mapping. If you've created a mashup for the country of Brasil that uses these new street maps be sure to post a comment on this post to let others know! Get ready for the Brasilian Google Maps mashup explosion! :)

Other news today from the Google Maps Team:

Improved Maps tiles for Japan - now supports hybrid street/satellite viewing (see this example).
Performance improvements in Revision 2.64 of API v2 - This post comes with a friendly reminder from the API folks: "..Please upgrade your site to use API v2, if you haven't already. We plan to shut down API v1 in a month."
New Satellite Imagery and Performance Improvements (Sep.18)

Monday, September 25, 2006

Ireland Google Maps Mashup Roundup

Dublin Crime Mashup:

This new Google Maps mashup maps all homicides in Dublin, Ireland from 2004 onwards. Rather than mashing up with a database of crimes it uses news reports as its primary data source. Geo developer Matthew Sammon explains that crime stats in Dublin are very "coarse-grained". He goes on to mention that other types of crime may be added in the future. Other Crime and Sex Offender mashups can be found here..

Patients awaiting hospital admission - Figures are from April 2005 to April 2006 for hospitals in Ireland. [Via ProgrammableWeb]

Other Previously Mentioned Mashups:

DartMaps - Live locations of Dublin commuter trains!
Daft.ie - Ireland property search on Google Maps
Dublin RoadWatch
A good list of other Irish Google Maps mashups
Nearby.org.uk - Google Maps mashup with many websites with data for Ireland
The Bono Probability Positioning System - Read my post about the Google Maps tool that will help you find the U2 star! :)
Wikimapia: Ireland
GoogleSightseeing.com: Ireland
Sightseeing with Google Maps: Ireland

Google Maps Mashups: US Real Estate, Cities, Politics

Trulia Real Estate mashup one year on - GigaOM has an interesting article about Google Maps real estate mashup Trulia which turns one year old this week. Liz Gannes points out a few new features that Trulia rolls out today including: "..Doubling it's number of states to 50, neighborhood information (e.g. schools and crime data); trends for sales and listing pricing, number of sales, and Trulia search traffic; and heat maps (only available for cities) to visually communicate these dense tables of number." Take a look at the full article for more details and visit Trulia here...

CityRanks shows US city population - If you're looking for a quick and easy tool to reference population data for US cities check out Ken Fehling's CityRanks. It maps population density for 500 US Cities. Search options allow you to filter the number of cities plotted on the Google Map, and by state.


Mapping the 20 "Most Corrupt Politicians" -

The group called "Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington" has produced a new report which documents the unethical activities of twenty-five Members of Congress: 22 House Members and three Senators. BeyondDelay.org maps each of these individuals and presents the report so you can draw your own conclusions. [via]

Used Computer Stores in the US - Created using DIY site ZeeMaps
Find a Yoga Studio in the US or Canada [Via ProgrammableWeb]

Sunday, September 24, 2006

UK charity uses Google Maps to map support

Obi Felten from Google's UK office dropped me a line to let me know about The NSPCC's (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) fantastic new Google Maps mashup that supports their "Full Stop" campaign:

"..The campaign is focused on mobilising adults to take action against cruelty to children. The NSPCC aims to get over 1 million people in the UK to take action by 'putting themselves on the map at bethefullstop.com. Once on the map, people can invite friends to join them, create their own personal network of support, take further actions and become part of a community of NSPCC supporters. The map thus provides a tangible visualisation of support for the NSPCC, including individuals, celebrities and companies."

This is one of the nicest interface designs I've seen in a Google Maps mashup so be sure to check it out. While you're there, plot your location on the map to support the cause - you don't need to be from the UK to do this. Those of you in the UK are encouraged to learn how you can help the NSPCC through volunteering, fundraising, campaigning and donating. Obi also had this to say: "We think this is a great mashup - it is truly useful, creates an online community, looks good and works well."

Related:
WebUser Magazine: NSPCC uses Google maps to promote charity
British Airways Google Maps mashup
Google Maps UK Airport Hotel and Parking Mashup
Realtime UK Rail Map
UK Google Maps Mashups: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Friday, September 22, 2006

Google Maps Mania: All Special Roundup Posts


Here is a collection of all special posts I've put together for various countries, cities and topics. It should help you find specific Google Maps mashups for various themes:

Special Google Maps Mania Posts:
Mapping your Photos, Travel Mashups, Music Maps, Google Maps in the News & Media - Part 2, Celebrity Maps, Zip Code Maps, Book Maps, Educational Uses of Google Maps, How Google uses Google Maps - Part 2, Google Maps Creation Tools & Resources (All 8 parts are linked here).

Country/City Google Maps Mania Roundup Posts:
Australia Part1, Part2 UK - Part1, Part2, Part3 France - Part1, Part2, Part3, New Zealand Part1, Part 2, Canada Part1, Part 2, Germany Part1, Part2, China, Russia Part1, Part2, Italy, Holland, Greece, Cambodia, Thailand, Qatar, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York City

2 cool Google Maps mashups for DC and Philly

Philly Sound and Maps Mashup - Here is a fantastic new Google Maps mashup from the "Official Visitor Site of Greater Philadelphia" (gophila.com) that combines sound with Google Maps. It's called Sound About Philly. Various guided audio tours bring you through Philadelphia's history, "flavorhoods", and residents' perspectives of this great city. You can also create your own sound mapmash and leave it for others to view. It's a model mashup for other city tourism sites!


DC Punk History Maps Mashup - Here is another Google Maps app that pushes the mashup envelope. Combining in-map (and podcast) video clips, giant picture map pins, and interviews this Google Maps history mashup brings you on a tour through Washington DC's punk past. Each map marker contains another chapter of how punk culture was formed in DC and for each marker you can SMS to receive this info on your mobile. This, along with the video podcast and PDF map makes this a mobile city tour you can take with you. [Via NPR]

Thursday, September 21, 2006

UN Environment Programme Google Maps mashup

The UN Environment Programme is using Google Maps to display an interesting atlas:
Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment
:


This awesome global Google Maps mashup of UN data lets you explore before and after images to show how the environment is changing these locations. Each map marker will show you details about the location, images and a short story. There is also a link that will allow you to immediately open that location in Google Earth as well (More details on this from the Google Earth Blog). Planetizen Radar reports that this atlas was announced in June 2005 and since then has been available as a free download or book purchase.

More information: One Planet Many People

Bank Anywhere in the US with Google Maps

+ = Bank-Anywhere!

Looking for a bank but would rather not go searching through the phone book for branches you think match your present address? No worries! Bank - Anywhere is a new Google Maps mashup that lets you plot all US national bank branches on a map based on zip code, city/town or address. It combines FDIC Bank Office Data with Google Maps to help you find a bank close to you! Launched on September 16th/06, this mashup is currently displaying 87,747 locations. There is an FAQ, as well as a blog to keep you up to date on the app as it develops.

3 new Google Maps mashups - California, NYC, Boston

San Jose Gas Prices - Here is a new Google Maps mashup for folks that live and/or work in the San Jose area. It displays locations of each gas station, along with the current price for various grades of fuel. Map markers show a user submitted price and question marks on the map are awaiting submission. This could be a handy tool to reference before leaving work in the afternoon. It's also another one of those recent mashups that I think would be even better to check out on a mobile device! To make it even better, be sure to register to add price info for the station you're filling up at. [Via ProgrammableWeb]

San Luis Obispo Google Maps mashup - Here is a fine example of how a community portal or city website can integrate Google Maps. SLOPages.com serves tourists and residents of San Luis Obispo, California and have recently integrated a Google Maps view into many areas including: golf courses, wineries, restaurants, hotels, real estate... attractions, events, web cams, shopping and cinemas. Check out these Google Maps by selecting various page links from the left-side bar.

New York Metro, Boston Property Search - Urban Registry is a simple property search tool, that lets you find a house, co-op, loft or condo in New York Metro or Greater Boston. It uses a small Google Maps view to plot the location of your search results. [Via ProgrammableWeb]

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Canada Google Maps Mashup Roundup Part 2/2

+
= Google Maps Mashup Roundup Part 2 (of 2)
(See Part 1 here..)
In part 2 I've pulled together city and location specific Google Maps mashups for places across Canada:

Google mapping the Toronto municipal election - The Toronto Star has long been a world media leader in utilizing Google Maps to display information. In November this site will play a huge role for Toronto residents to learn and follow the municipal elections across 25 municipalities in the GTA.

Ryerson Campus Map - Ryerson University student Pman has used the Google Maps API to combine a map of this downtown Toronto university campus and Google Maps layers. It's a great example of how an additional mapping layer can be mashed up with Google Maps. (More Campus Maps here)

Toronto Public Library Locations - If you're looking for your local library branch as Toronto resident, this Google Maps mashup of all locations will be a big help. It was created using the popular Google Maps DIY site Mapbuilder.net

Other great Toronto Google Maps: A great TTC map X2, X3, Property Search, Toronto Housing (select Toronto), Toronto Housing, Toronto Live Music, Restaurants, Traffic, Traffic again, More Traffic, Jewish Community, Entertainment District, Sweets, Views, Pics, Weather, Points of interest (in-list: Toronto), Hotwire/Priceline Hotels
Other Ontario Google Maps: Beer (& Liquor) Mapped, Ontario Restaurants, Golf Courses, Lake Ontario Ports

Montreal: Montreal Metro Map, Montreal traffic, info and pics, Montreal Wifi Locations, Find a cafe

Vancouver: Find Celebrities in Vancouver, Vancouver (and BC) Rentals, Vancouver Housing (in-list: Vancouver)

Elsewhere in Canada:
Canadian Universities
Quebec Wineries
Google Map of Winnipeg Restaurants
Charlottetown, PEI Transit Map
Ottawa Runs
Alberta Libraries
Find an Iceberg in Newfoundland
Peter Calamai's Arctic Diary Map - Diary is here
Niagara Falls Hotwire/Priceline Hotels

Want to create a Google Maps mashup for something Canadian? CommunityWalk will help to get you started, or if you're serious use the Google Maps API! Please post a comment if you know of another Canadian mashup not mentioned in thes

Google Maps in context

GoogleMaps Guru Talks - The following is a Q&A I have done recently with Canadian tech journalist and blogger, Mark Evans. If you want to learn more about Google Maps Mania (or me).. here's your chance. :) (posted on the Maple Leaf 2.0 Blog - Sep.18/06)

More than road maps
Washington Technology - Sep.18/06
Google adds more mapping innovations
Yahoo! News - Sep.14/06
Google maps spotlight Earth's changes, wonders
Middle East Times - Sep.14/06
Google (and other) Maps Revisited!
MobuzzTV - Sep.14/06
The Big Local
Clickz - Sep.14/06
The Google-Intuit Partnership: This Could Be Massive
Business 2.0 Blog - Sep.13/06
Australian Device Makes Maps Of the Ground It Covers
Modern Mechanix - Sep.13/06
Google Coming To Manhattan
SEORoundtable - Sep.13/06
Still waiting for Metadata with online mapping tools
SpatiallyAdjusted - Sep.13/06
Google maps offer interesting options
Charlotte.com - Sep.13/06
Have Your Company Listed Free in Google Maps
isedb.com - Sep.13/06
Les meilleurs "mash-ups" sur Google Earth et Google Maps (French)
TF1.LCI.FR - Sep.12/06
Data Warehousing, Part 3: One Step Beyond
ECommerceTimes - Sep.11/06
Google Maps Past and Present
Canadian Cartographic Association - Sep.10/06
A Sweet "Napoleon Dynamite" Map and Other Google Mashups
New York Times - Sep.10/06
Mashups: An Easy, Free Way to Create Custom Web Apps
TechSoup - Sep.8/06

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

This NYC Google Maps mashup really stinks!

The folks over at the Gawker blog are at it again. First they created Celeb Tracker Gawker Stalker which stirred up controversy and caught the attention of mainstream media such as BBC World. They're back with their latest Google Maps mashup: Gawker New York City Subway Smells Map. The map, as the title indicates, plots subway smells based on Gawker reader submissions, by station throughout the city.

It's a raw and in your face map (I warned you!) that Gawker explains in this blog post: "..Careful study and rote memorization of the smell map will allow you to navigate the subway system without even opening your eyes. Of course, you'll have to train your nose to distinguish the local urine varietals at each station, but that's a small price to pay. Enjoy this finely interactive and cartographic work of investigative service journalism."

This mashup was constructed by Will James using a syndicated version of his NYC Subway map over on OnNYTurf.

(Other New York City Google Maps mashups here..)

Google mapping 50 marathons in 50 straight days



The person: Dean Karnazes

The challenge: Set out on a historic endurance running expedition to run 50 marathons in each of the 50 United States in 50 consecutive days (from September 17th to November 15th, 2006)

The event: Endurance 50

The Google Maps Mashup - This mashup uses a Timex Body Link watch he's wearing to help track his runs and posting the information online using Google Maps. (Note: Choose the run from the left-side then switch the map view to Google Maps. Best viewed in Internet Explorer.)

[Thanks for the tip Brian!]

Monday, September 18, 2006

Orkut now using Google Maps

+ = Friend Map

Registered Orkut users might be interested in the new integration of Google Maps into this social networking site. Blogger Darnell Clayton of InsideOrkut has posted about a new feature that maps friends who have completed address information. The Blog Herald who also covers this feature addition points us to the Orkut Help page that covers this new friend mapping feature.

Related: Social Networking Google Maps Mashups

Sunday, September 17, 2006

British Airways creates a Google Maps mashup

+

The British Airways website is using Google Maps, making them potentially the first airline to create a Google Maps mashup. A section of their website promoting 'World Offers' (only departing from the UK) is now showing a Google Maps mashup of hotel locations for each city BA flies into. A list of cities is displayed with a "Discover hotels on Google Maps" link, bringing you to a map of recommended hotels with quick links for making a reservation. By checking on world cities that I'm familiar with it seems hotels are plotted in their proper location, even for those that don't yet have street mapping available from Google Maps. For each city the airport is clearly marked and for some cities (such as Paris) landmarks are also map-marked so you can find nearby hotels to these spots. Check out the mashup here..

Elsewhere on the site a Google Earth layer is available for download to show 111 British Airways destinations, including locations of hotels and prices. BA also uses Google Video to display the World Offer commercial that solely makes use of Google Earth throughout entire clip. It's worth a look. This is a great multi-Google-geo mashup that is sure to be an example for the entire airline and travel industry!

Related:
Google Maps Travel Mashups & Tools
UK Google Maps Mashups: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3
Google Maps UK Airport Hotel and Parking Mashup

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