New Year's mashups from Google Maps Mania!

Figures of '08 Google Map:

To ring in the New Year here is a Google Maps photo mashup produced by National Museums, Liverpool (UK). It features locations of photos throughout the city that display "08", the logo that celebrates Liverpool's year of being the European Capital of Culture. Note the special "08" map marker as well! :) This map doubles as a great New Year's Google Maps mashup! Happy New Year!

10 Google Maps Mashups to help you ring in the New Year:

• World Time Map
• World Weather
• World Sunrise times
• World Daylight Map
• World Webcams
• New York City webcams
• Taxi Fare Calculator (US/Canada)
• Stay Up Maps (US)
• World Live Music Map
• World Transit Mashups

Wikipedia: 2008, New Year, New Year's Day

Google Maps Creation Tools - Part 20

(New to creating Google Maps mashups? Try My Maps!)

New Google Maps tools & software:

• Make your own Google Maps wall calendar
• Hack Google (Maps) URLs for Quick Searching - From LifeHacker
• JumpToMap - Email-Friendly links to Google Maps
• Reverse Geocoder - Pan/Zoom to anywhere in the world with Google Maps coverage. [By Nico via Mapperz]

• Houdah Software Updates HoudahGeo Photo Geocoding Software
• GeoJournal 1.1 - Plan, manage, and record your geocaching adventures (with Google Maps integration).
• VisiStat (Web)Statcasting + Google Maps

Google Maps Mashup Tools and Resources:

• Mapanno - "..Mash up images, graphics, maps, and text to create your own unique content to publish on your own website/ blog."
• Exhibit 2.0 - "..Create interactive data-rich web pages like these ones below without ever touching a database or a web server, or doing any programming."
• Wordpress PostMapper Plugin
• Elevation Chart in Flex with Google Maps
• Using Google Maps with the FormSpring API
• Zoho Creator + Yahoo! Pipes + Google Maps
• Module: Mapinfo MIF files --> Google Maps - Email Andrei Bodrov (ebeling.data -= AT =- gmail -dot- com) if you are interested in getting more details. Example maps here and here
• US Dog Parks map-export feature
• Microsoft CRM + Google Maps = MSCRMGoogleMaps Blog
• New @ MapChannels - Batch geocoder creates embedded map from tab-delimited address file (plus more)

Blog Posts & Articles:

• Best of the Google LatLong Blog 2007
• Street View embeddable panoramas - Google LatLong Blog
• Google Moon and Mars now part of the Google Maps API - Google Maps API Blog
• Enable terrain on your Google Maps mashup - Google Maps API Blog
• Add the Google Bar to your Google Maps mashup - Google Maps API Blog
• Creating a User-Contributed Map App - Google Maps API Blog
• ExtInfoWindow 1.0: Ajax powered, CSS customization - Google Maps API Blog
• Which countries have coverage on Google Maps? - Google Maps Mania previous post
• Google Maps: Allow anyone to edit your map - Google Maps Mania previous post
• Import your KML, KMZ, and GeoRSS files - Google LatLong Blog
• Global Mapper 9.01 released - export ANY loaded data for use with Google Maps - GISUser.com

For more recent Creation Tools post, click the label below!
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50 More Things to do with Google Maps Mashups

• See the first 50 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups here..

1. Find a world brewery
2. Track world terrorism
3. Find a WiFi Hotspot in the US
4. Align your satellite dish properly
5. Catch live music in your area
6. Track a US package
7. See the world at night
8. Walk in a straight line around the world
9. Explore the new 7 wonders of the world (More)
10. Map 2008 presidential campaign contributions
11. Find a public toilet
12. Track a US or Canadian flight number
13. Lookup real-time US airport status
14. Map US FAA delayed flight information
15. Find a world airport, airline or connection
16. Find out "walkscore" for house or apartment
17. Calculate US or Canadian Taxi Fare
18. Look at the clouds!
19. Explore any location on earth
20. Map US telephone area codes
21. Drive like a madman
22. Find a job
23. Find even more webcams
24. Scan your UK driving route
25. Explore and map the bible
26. Map your wedding festivities
27. Find a world hostel
28. Form a crop circle, send a smoke signal
29. Track US big box store construction
30. Map US Zip code boundaries
31. Find a UNESCO World Heritage Site
32. Find an alternate map
33. Find a US mailbox
34. Plan a mid-point meet-up (exact)
35. Find out who is sick around you
36. Explore photos of the world
37. Map places by book name
38. Find a US Winery
39. Find an extreme sport
40. Map the top 10 world skyscrapers
41. Find a place to eat in the US
42. Find a popular map in any area
43. Measure long range distance.. in 2 ways
44. Determine Lat/Long for anywhere
45. Make your own map
46. Find the shortest round-trip route
47. Google Map your blog or website visitors
48. Find tons of area info for anywhere
49. Plan and map a worldwide conference call
50. Determine ease of doing business in any country

• See the first 50 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups here..

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Santa Claus is 874 miles from Christmas!

What's better than a good Christmas card around the holidays?? A Google Maps themed Christmas card of course! Loyal Google Maps Mania reader Emil Goh from Seoul, Korea dropped me a line with this Google Maps Christmas greeting:

Hi Mike, Just wanted to say hi & merry xmas & happy new year. Made a google maps christmas card, which i hope you & your crew will like. Keep up the good work! cheers, Emil Goh - Seoul

Accompanying Emil's greeting was this great Google Maps screenshot which shows how far Santa Claus is from Christmas!!

The answer: 874 miles (about 13 hours 42 mins)..If Santa decides to take it easy and checks the "Avoid Highways" box on Google Maps he may need to break the news to Rudolph that he'll be galloping an extra 60 miles for 7 more hours. :) Take a look at the entire route between Santa Claus, Indiana and Christmas, Florida. :) Check out Emil's post about the card on Theme Magazine!

More Christmas Maps fun:

• Google Maps Satellite Views: "Christmas 2007" - From GoogleSightseeing.com
• US Towns/Cities with holiday season names - There are apparently many more places named Christmas and Santa Claus in the US.. even some named Rudolph, Antlers, Holly, Jolly and yes, even North Pole. This mashup will help you locate all of these places and more! :)
• Check out how you and your kids can track Santa leading up to Christmas Eve using Google Earth and NoradSanta.org! There are some fun Christmas games you can take part in leading up to Christmas eve on NoradSanta as well! :)

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New ways to embed, search & maintain your maps!

Embed a panoramic Google Maps Street View! - Hot on the heels of a 6 city Google Maps Street View update comes the launch of "embeddable panoramas". Now you can embed a panoramic image from street view in the same way you can embed a Google Map! Here's a sample view from just outside the arena of the greatest hockey team in the NHL: :)


View Larger Map

Comments, ratings and top links added for My Maps:

This Google LatLong Blog post introduces some awesome new features for My Maps (Google's easy maps creation tools). If you're busy creating maps in the My Maps tab on Google Maps you are being rewarded with ways to learn more about the visitation of the map you've built and what people think! Follow the directions contained on this post to find out how many views your map has received, what the overall rating of the map is and who is linking to it. I've long maintained that the Google Maps mashup craze is creating a new chapter in the history of the web where the map is the web page. These tools help you, the "mapmaster" to take control, gain feedback on your work and be inspired to make your map even better! :)

Confessions of a (Google Maps) search box - Learn about new Google content that has been added to Google Maps search: Panoramio pics, YouTube vids and Google Book Search pages

For more Google Maps updates, click "Google Maps" below..
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9 great new US Google Maps mashups!

MapEcos: Awesome US Environmental Performance Mashup:

MapEcos is a Google Maps mashup that "presents a balanced view of industrial environmental performance." It mashes up with the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) dataset from the EPA and then displays the information logically on a map so an average person can understand what the factory down the street is spewing into the air. MapEcos was developed by students at Dartmouth College along with faculty of the business schools at Dartmouth, Duke, and Harvard. This is a fantastic UI that has some really nice clustering, search and zoom features to work with a very large dataset. This is a great mashup.

Over 300 Great Lakes webcams (US & Canada) .. mapped!

This awesome webcam mashup is courtesy of AJ Hartley at Michigan/Canadian weather mashup PleasantWeather.com..

CrimeReportsLive.com: Crime Reports in Dallas

Kenneth "Ellis" McCall has created a well presented crime map for Dallas, Texas. It welcomes you with a great options to learn about the free and premium service and also offers a mobile mapping service. (News coverage for this mashup)

• US National Golf Map - An extensive Google Maps mashup of courses for every state!
• NCAA Football: College Bowl Schedule Mashup - Sorts the games by Date, Teams Traveling most miles and Teams Traveling least miles (Brent Evans has also created a mashup for this.. found here)
  
• Saving Yellowstone: Map of the President Arthur Expedition - This "bookmap" shows the route that is chronicled in the book: Saving Yellowstone: The President Arthur Expedition of 1883
• Dog Park USA Map - Greg Holsclaw and his wife have created a massive state dog park mashup that includes a nifty "Export this map" feature, allowing you to embed the map into your own blog/website.
• TrailHeadFinder - Hiking trail map for US and Canada
• California Medical Marijuana Locator: Southern and Northern California

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Google Maps Mania links for 2007-12-12

Make a Google Maps Wall Calendar! - Looking for a 2008 Wall calendar? Make a Google Maps wall calendar with Piet Jonas' GMaps Wall Calendar Generator. Center and zoom the map to a place you want to capture and click "Open Print Preview" to create the calendar page. Further customize the month view by inserting captions or include the exact lat/long and zoom level of the map you've chosen!

PlayStation 3 "Game Map": UnCharted - Drake's Fortune - A PS3 game title is using Google Maps in a pretty challenging web-game that you can take part in. Follow the clues and watch the clock! [Thanks to Leon McComish for the tip!] -- See more alt. Maps API examples here..

Beerdex: Mapping beer prices worldwide:

The Beer Index or just simply "Beerdex" is a Google Maps mashup of beer costs from around the globe. Collected via polling from the site the Map itself displays beer prices by country and city and places an emphasis on... cheap. :) The mashup uses the British pound as a currency so use Google to work it back to your own local currency.

House hunting just got easier with Google Maps collaboration (iTWire Dec.6/07) - Couples searching for the perfect real estate now have a great online assistant thanks to Google Maps' new collaboration features [Read More..]
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New Google Maps Street View Cities: Detroit, Boston, Providence, Indianapolis, Dallas, Minneapolis

New Street View Cities added!


6 New US cities have been added to Google Maps Street View! Detroit, Boston, Providence, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Dallas are all able to be viewed at street level by clicking the "Street View" toggle button at the top right of the viewport in Google Maps. Look for parking before you set out, explore city landmarks, search for a local business or look at a house you might be interested in buying! Street View is an awesome way to explore cities!

Related:
Google's candid camera snaps Australia
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3 great new Google Maps Music Mashups!

3 Interesting and very different "Music Maps Mashups" have caught my attention this past week. Here they are:

MappaMusica: "a mashup to discover music":

Wondering what kind of music folks in Australia dig? Want to be as cool as the kids from Bangkok or South Korea? MappaMusica takes you on a global musical journey by way of a Google Maps interface to explore and discover popular music, by country! This mashup takes statistics from Last.fm and presents the top artists and tracks being listened to in a particular country. This is a great way to discover new music by simply clicking a country on the map! The top track in India according to Last.fm? Comfortably Numb.. Pink Floyd. :)

Map of Led Zeppelin Landmarks:

Here is a perfect music maps mashup of significant places for the band Led Zeppelin. If you're a die hard fan you'll be interested to see the actual place where the Physical Graffiti album cover was photographed, or perhaps you'd like to locate the recording studio that made them world-famous? This map has great captions packed with stories, photos and best of all placemarks showing you where these locations are on a Google Map. A little geo with your stairway?

JamLoop: Map your musical gear search

Looking for a new electric guitar? Maybe you're searching for a specific Fender tube amp? JamLoop is a new Google Maps powered musical gear search tool that will help you locate these sought-after pieces of equipment. The service aggregates US local and national listings from hundreds of sources and brings them to you in one place. Your search results can be mapped and from there each result links off to its original source so you can gather further details to decide on the purchase. A true music maps mashup!

Check out my recently updated list of Google Maps Music Mashups from here on Google Maps Mania!
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Google Maps Mania links for 2007-12-03

Google Maps Fastest Roundtrip Calculator Tool:

The TSP (Traveling SalesPerson) Solver is great new Google Maps tool that will help you calculate the fastest round-trip from any starting point and one to many destinations. To use the tool just click on any two (or more) points on the map and the TSP Solver will automatically determine the quickest route for you to take. The tool incorporates Google Maps Driving Directions to provide you the right streets/roads to take and also calculates the round-trip time and length for you. It's a great tool to help you create a round-trip itinerary from a starting point to any number of locations!

• Google Maps Terrain View Gallery (Terrain view info here)
• Calling America - Stories By Real People From Real Places
• The big, big picture - Westmount Examiner, Dec.1/07
• Toronto area cut-your-own Christmas tree farms map
  
• BlewSpace - Where are you blogging from?
• Euro Street Art Map (By Alessandro Capra)
• Biofuels (long tail ) Community Map
• Hampton Roads, VA (USA) Property Sales
• Kajeet Store Locator adds driving directions

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Which countries have coverage on Google Maps?

Wondering which countries have Google Maps coverage? (Hint: Use this!)

Pamela Fox has posted about a brilliant new spreadsheet tool on the Official Google Maps API Blog that will help you keep up to date on the constantly changing country-coverage on Google Maps (and the Maps API). In her post she presents 3 example questions that this tool will help address: 1) Which countries have map tiles and local business results?, 2)Which countries have localized map controls 3)Which countries have driving directions and geocoding? For example, filter the spreadsheet for countries that have map tiles + geocoding + driving directions + business listings and localization to reveal those countries with full feature availability. The raw, full list with all countries displayed will give you the complete coverage picture for Google Maps as well. Be sure to check back often as this will change frequently! Pamela's closing line of her post is something I'd like to echo here on Google Maps Mania:
"Now, go forth and make internationally relevant mashups!" :)
[via]
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Google Maps for Mobile now shows your location (without GPS)!

The Google Maps (for Mobile) team has today launched a really cool new feature that will display your current location on the map even if your device does not have built in GPS functionality! The feature is called "My Location" and It works by taking information broadcast from mobile towers near you to approximate your current location on the map. Lost? Need to find a business in the immediate area? Need to get directions from your current location? My Location will allow you to flip out your mobile device and do all of these things instantly and without having to clammer around to set your current location (if you even know).

Take a look at this YouTube clip to learn more..:

Download Google Maps for Mobile by visiting www.google.com/gmm on your mobile phone!
(Works for most web-enabled mobile phones, including Java, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia/Symbian devices [more info])

More My Location links and info:

• Google Mobile Blog: New magical blue circle on your map
• My Location feature info page
• Google Maps Help Center (See: "Using GPS and My Location (Beta)")
• Google Mobile Help Group: My Location discussion
• YouTube: My Location clip
• Google Maps for Mobile (download page + info)

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Google Maps: Allow anyone to edit your map

Update: Please add your location, photo, video, mashup URL or something interesting to the Google Maps Mania Visitor Map, which shows this collaborative mapping feature in action!

Google Maps has launched the feature everyone creating maps has been waiting for: Collaborative Map Editing! Now when you create a map using Google Maps creation tools you can invite specific friends, co-workers or family to edit the map or even select an option to "Allow anyone to edit this map".

To see how this feature can be enabled, create a map from the My Maps tab in Google Maps, then click the "Collaborate" link on the left side panel to see:


So let's give this a try! I've set up a Google Maps Mania Visitor Map that I encourage everyone to visit and add your location to! Add your name, or the name/address of your mashup or just post a fun picture or video of your favorite place on earth.. Let's have some fun! :) To take part, follow the link above and click the "EDIT" button found to the left of the map. Browse to a place on the map and add your location. If you've never created a "My Map" using Google Maps creation tools, this will be your chance to try it out! :) Let's fill this map up! :)

Googler Jess Lee has shown a great example in her Google Lat Long Blog post announcing this new feature: "..imagine if all the surfers around the globe worked together, leveraging their combined knowledge to create a single map of the best surf spots worldwide, applying the power of wiki-style collaboration to cartography." Is the "Google Maps Mania phenomenon" entering a new chapter of mass, user-collaborative mashups thanks to this new feature? I personally think so. The power and scope of a maps mashup expands greatly when not one but many contribute to it. Stay tuned!
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New terrain viewing option added to Google Maps!

Google Maps has been updated with new viewing capabilities! Visit Google Maps to see a new "Terrain" viewing option which will show you the geo-physical features of the earth, including labels to help you identify them! Also being modified with this feature addition is the "Hybrid" viewing option which still remains, but is now termed as "Show labels" and is found by clicking the Satellite button. Check out the screen shots below:



More information can be found on from the Official Google Lat-Long Blog post titled: Explore new terrain

[Thanks to Eric Lund for the tip!]
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Google Maps + FAA flight data = FlightWait.com

FlightWait.com:

FlightWait.com is a new Google Maps mashup from the folks at Poly9.com of Quebec City, Canada. It's a useful maps app that displays real-time flight conditions for U.S. airports using FAA data. It works by entering a zip code, city name, or airport code (LGA) which then displays colour coded lines representing flight paths from that airport. Four possible color coded lines appear noting time duration of delays: 0-15 minutes, 16-59 minutes, 1-2 hours or > 2 hours. Click the "Show all airport delays" for some real fun! After you've seen the airports that show delays longer than 2 hours, head over to another Google Maps mashup, WeatherBonk.com, to find out why these delays are taking place! :)

Other Flight-related Google Maps mashups

More Google Maps mashups from Poly9:
US Traffic Mashup
Election Results in Quebec
GC Fisheries and Oceans
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Belguim, Denmark, Spain, Russia, Norway: New Google Maps Mashups!

Great weather mashup from Norway!
Anders Eriksen sent me a tip about a great new Norwegian weather forecast mashup. The weather mashup has been developed for TV 2 Norway, with data from the Storm Weather Center in that country. Anders explains: "..The data is delivered via a so called Weather On Demand database, and you are able to click on the Google map everywhere in the world and get a forecast, wind, temperature etc. You can also playback an animation of weather symbols on the Google map, forecasting the next hours. The service is only available in Norwegian language thus far (with no plans for an English version anytime soon)." Here is an example for my home city of Waterloo, Ontario with meteogram, 10 day forecast, animation on Google Maps etc..

• Copenhagen Police Crime Mashup
• Mapping Mayors from 98 municipalities of Denmark (made with MIT SIMILE Exhibit 2.0)
• Mapping Monthly weather records since 1874 [Thanks to Soren Johannessen for these Danish mashups!]
• Belguim GSM Antennas Map (French language)
• Find family fun in Belguim (French language) [via]
• Sport facilities in Gipuzkoa, Spain
• Hotels near Madrid Subway stations (English)
• Russian GeoLinks geotagging tool

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Cool Google Maps Mashup and Links Roundup

Realius Fantasy Real Estate Game (WARNING: Very addictive!)

This *addictive* Bay Area (US) real estate game uses Google Maps to challenge you to tour a home and set its market price right on the spot. Nail the price and it earns you big points. I was getting to know a particular neighborhood and nailing prices within a few hundred dollars of the asking price in no time! This is a really fun maps-based game. (Requires quick, free registration)

Animal Tracking on Google Maps:

Track Polar Bears, Elephants, Whales, Turtles and Penguins with this interesting and educational Google Maps tracker. LoveEarth.com have done a great job giving you the stories and the names of these animals, along with some stunning photography.

• View Amazon.com book reviews geographically
• Freemages Free Image Map! - Don't let your lack of French stop you from exploring this library of photographs geolocalized under "Licence Art Libre". Just follow the map pins!
• VibeAgent Hotel Mashup - Book hotel accommodations with combined user-generated hotel reviews, meta-search, and social networking.
• Gruvr Concert Maps Mashup links up with Skreemr (I absolutely LOVE Gruvr BTW)
• StrangeMaps Blog - Recenlty stumbled upon this GREAT general mapping blog the other day.. Check it out! :)
• Hottest Products of 2007: Google Maps -- An entirely new direction - Blogging Stocks, Nov.21/07
  

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Happy Turkey Day from Google Maps Mania!

The Turkey / Thanksgiving Day Mashup:

Virender Ajmani helps us locate Cities/Towns in the US named TURKEY, claiming to be the "Turkey Capital of the US/World", those named "Plymouth" or "Cranberry" :)

Armchair Parade Watching - A post from the Google Lat Long Blog showing links to popular parade maps like the NYC Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Chicago Parade!

Don't forget the football! :)
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UK: 8 New Google Maps Mashups!

Routescanner scans your route before you travel! Paul Clarke has created this great Google Maps tool which searches and displays all real-time traffic info and speed cameras along a specific route you specify. It combines the same driving directions engine that Google Maps uses with real-time information provided by BBC Travel and the Highways Agency. When you perform a search (Liverpool to Leeds for example) you learn what can affect that particular journey you are about to take. Things such as roadworks, speed cameras, traffic accidents and so on.

City of Leeds real-time travel info: Here is a fantastic Google Maps mashup created by the City of Leeds! It features a journey planner, traffic news, parking, weather, live CCTV cameras and more! It has a number of great user interface features that will let you choose regions of the city and select timescales. This is really nice work! [via]

Camden Cycling Campaign Route Map: Here is a great mashup showing cycling routes throughout the city of London. Some pretty intense UI and programming work has been put into this mashup. Be sure to take a look at this map if not only for the controls and interesting user features that have been included. [Thanks to Mapperz for this one!]

• London Tube Hotels - Listed by most popular tube stations and mashing up with over 865 London hotels. Searches several hotel reservations companies to find you cheap rooms.
• UK Local Area - Browse for UK local area information including census statistics, house prices, council tax, energy prices and more in England and Wales. [Via Mapperz]
• Sky News: The Big Picture Map - Click on a marker to see a snapshot of climate change and how people are making a difference in the UK. [Via Mapperz]
• AboutLetting UK Property Search - Cool UK Property Search Tool that uses a number of javascript techniques to group properties and annotate maps dynamically with local service info.
• Doodle 4 Google UK logo design competition Map - "..The 'Doodle 4 Google' competition asked young people across the UK to design their own doodle based on the Google logo. The winning doodler was 14-year old Claire Rammelkamp." This map shows YouTube clips from around the UK from entrants. [via]
• Other good Google Maps mashups and tools for finding UK-based information: OnGmap, Wikimapia, Nestoria Property Search, UK GoogleSightseeing, UK Satellite Views

Many more UK Google Maps mashups can be found by clicking the UK label below!
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In the middle of the map.. a blog!

The geoblog of a pedestrian in San Francisco..

This headline on a Digg article recently caught my eye:
Most Original Geoblog (Using Google Maps API) I've Ever Seen
With well over 700 diggs I decided to take a look... A large, urban, full screen satellite toggled view of Google Maps comes into view with a recognizable red pin marking a location in a residential neighborhood. The title tag reads: "contolini.com // the geoblog of a pedestrian in san francisco" Growing out from the pin is a large window containing an ordinary personal blog with titles like: "after work today", "garbanzo beans are the next chicken" and "if there's one thing I enjoy". The titles are posts from Chris Contolini's blog that are literally.. on a map!

The Digg entry explains:
"A modified Wordpress installation is forced inside a Google Maps info window. A small GPS Java app running on his phone places a marker at his current position, while transmitting the time, direction, and speed at which he was moving when he last updated. You can literally see everywhere he is throughout the day (assuming his cell phone is on)."

Don't expect an elaborate (or even interesting) blog. It's an ordinary and infrequent smattering of posts. What's interesting about this is that the entire blog he embeds into this map is location based. Not posts, not photos but the whole thing. As he moves, the map moves with him so the posts (while maybe not location specific) have location based context based to where he is. I think this is a really interesting concept for a blog and hopefully Chris keeps it going. As uninteresting as it is, I'm still interested. :)

For more "real-time" Google Maps mashups, click the label below..
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Google Maps + Blogs and Feeds = VerveEarth

VerveEarth - Geo-browse blogs, feeds and news!

VerveEarth is a really cool new Google Maps mashup that lets you discover new blogs and news for a geographic area anywhere in the world. When visiting the landing page of VerveEarth you are greeted by the number of feeds that are waiting by continent. I chose to zoom down into New York City to see what is being located. As I arrive in Manhattan a number of recognizable logos are all displayed: MTV, Rolling Stone, The UN, The New Yorker and even users of VerveEarth who have geo-located themselves and added the feed from their blog. By clicking on a map marker it reveals the feeds available from that source as well as a number of options: Add to Favorites, Comments or links off to its page or Wikipedia entry. I took the 30 seconds it takes to register for an account and was also able to save locations and add feeds to 'My Favorites'. If you're a news site or blogger, you need to invite 10 friends to VerveEarth before you can add your own location which helps to promote and foster the social aspects of the mashup. I see VerveEarth as a really interesting way to explore and discover new blogs/feeds and it also creates a very unique blog/feed reading experience: right on a map! :)
[via & via]

Big News: Correct an address on Google Maps!

Google has just announced a great new feature for Google Maps that will let users correct the on-map marker location for an address you search for:

This new feature will work for addresses in the U.S. Australia or New Zealand. Google's Seth LaForge explains on this Google Lat-Long blog post that this can be put to use to correct the marker locations for homes and businesses by actually picking up the marker on the map and dropping it down right where the physical door or entrance is, making it easier for people visiting! This is a fantastic new feature that will help you ensure people can find you on and off the Google map!

This nifty little 30 second YouTube clip will help you visually see how this feature can be put to good use:


More helpful links courtesy of this "Edit Google Maps" Help Page:

• Improve information in Google Maps for the world to see
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Information for Business Owners

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New US Boundary and Zip Code Google Maps Tools

John Coryat is back with 2 new US-based boundary mapping tools!

Encoded Zip Code Polygons:

Plot the boundary area of any US zip code on to the map as a polygon. John shares the following: ..This one is especially cool in that it uses a Douglas-Peucker algorithm to compute the levels part of the encoding scheme that we wrote in Perl:
http://www.usnaviguide.com/google-encode.htm (open source Perl module)
Douglas-Peucker algorithm:
http://www.usnaviguide.com/douglas-peucker.htm (open source Perl module)

NPA Boundary Map (telephone area codes):

John describes this map tool: "..This one is very useful to anyone looking to see how an area code is layed out in the real world. The data should be fairly accurate. Either click on the map or key in an area code. It can also be accessed directly by including a parameter: http://www.usnaviguide.com/areacode.htm?n=607 (replace "607" with your area code)

See the rest of John's great (and very useful) Google Maps tools here..
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