A Cross Platform Guide to Mumbai

The Guardian Mumbai City Guide is the latest of the The Guardian's Google Maps based guides to the world's favourite cities. This time however they are trying something new.

Like the paper's previous city guides the map shows the best places to stay, eat and visit and includes videos and sound recordings taken in the city.

However with this map The Guardian has created an application that is "responsive to the platform on which it is viewed ... if you view the guide on a desktop or laptop, it looks one way, if you view it on a tablet, it looks another way, and if you view it on mobile, it looks different again. Crucially the source behind what you are viewing is exactly the same on all of them, it's just adapting accordingly".

One of the beauties of version 3 of the Google Maps API is that it it works with desktop computers, smartphones and tablets. Even Street View in the Google Maps API works on these very different platforms.

The cross-platform functionality of the API presumably helped The Guardian in creating a responsive application. The menu system (the map sidebar) is where The Guardian have worked their own magic. Check out the application on different platforms to see how the map menu adjusts to suit the platform on which it is viewed.

Auto-Rickshaw Fares on Google Maps

In India auto-rickshaws are highly unregulated and drivers often charge customers not on a fixed fare system but based on what they think the customer is willing to pay.

MeterPodu is an application designed to try and crowd-source auto-rickshaw fare information in a number of Indian cities and tell passengers what the approximate auto-rickshaw fare should be for their journey.

Using MeterPodu commuters can add their journey details to a Google Map and view the average fare charged for that journey based on what other users have been charged. Passengers then at least have some ammunition in the inevitable haggling over the fare with the auto-rickshaw driver.

The Festival of Lights on Google Maps

A diya is a small light or lamp. During Diwali or 'the festival of lights' diyas are lit to signify the triumph of good over evil. Light a Diya allows anyone to light a virtual diya at the home of a loved one to help wish them a happy Diwali (Diwali is on Oct 26 this year).

The application uses Google Maps to allow users to search and find the address of the home where they wish to light a virtual diya. It is also possible to send the recipient of your virtual diya a personal message, either using Facebook connect or via e-mail.

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Mapping Violence Against Women in India

According to maps4aid the high number of female foeticide, infanticide and human trafficking prevalent in India has placed it as the fourth most dangerous country for women in the world.

They have therefore set up this citizen reporting service using the Ushahidi platform. Anyone can report an incident by:

1. clicking on the “Submit A Report” link
2. sending an SMS/MMS
3. tweeting with the hashtag #m4aid
4. using the Ushahidi App for i-Phone or Android
5. making a voice call

All incidents reported will then be displayed on the maps4aid Google Map.

Hat-tip:Street View Funny

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A Car Rental Calculator for Google Maps

When you hire a car in India the car rental charge is based on the the distance travelled. However, it is not unknown for the odometers in rental cars to be 'generous' when calculating the distance travelled. This can obviously lead to the customer being overcharged.

CarRentalin is a fully fledged car rental calculator to help you know what you really should be paying. Users of CarRentalin can plan a route with the help of a Google Map and calculate the distance travelled and the estimated rental cost.

If you use CarRentalin to work out your rental costs you also get a fully detailed route map for your journey.

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Indian Real Estate on Google Maps

PropertyFeast is a real estate search portal for properties for sale and rent across India.



PropertyFeast features Google Maps throughout the user experience. If a user browses for properties by location then they are shown a Google Map of India displaying the towns and cities with properties listed on PropertyFeast.



It is possible to search for a property by location, price and by type of property. The results of all searches feature a Google Map displaying the returned properties. Each individual property listing on PropertyFeast also features a map to show the property's exact location.



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Indian Local Places on Google Maps

PlayCez is a great Google Maps based local recommendation engine for India.



PlayCez users can find the best places to eat, shop and hang out in the largest Indian cities. The user interface is very simple to use. Users just need to choose a city and whether they want to eat, shop or hangout. The results are then displayed on a Google Map and displayed alongside the map.



If users select an individual venue they can then read comments about the venue by other users, invite their friends to meet at the venue (via Connect with Facebook) and get directions to the venue.



Currently PlayCez is available for the major cities in India, but has plans to expand to further geographies soon.



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How to Calculate the Cost of a Car Journey

MyPetrolPlace.com

This new Google Maps based application allows you to work out the cost for your car or motorbike journey in India based on the current cost of petrol in your city.

To use MyPetrolPlace.com enter a starting point and a destination. Then add the number of kilometres per kilogram your vehicle normally achieves. The application then calculates your daily and monthly fuel expenditure.

Your journey is also displayed on a Google Map. You can change the displayed route by dragging the markers. All the metro cities and state capitals in India are supported by the application.

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A Google Map of Indian Corruption

Corruption Tweets from India

Mibazaar tells me that corruption is rampant in India, with quite a few politicians making a fortune. He argues that social media is playing a very important part in exposing the illegal activities of some politicians.

To help publicise the work of Twitter users Mibazaar has created this Google Map of Twitter messages tagged with 'corruption'. The map animates through the latest messages posted to Twitter. The map can also be embedded in any website or blog.

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Cricket World Cup Final on Google Maps

Cricket World Cup 2011

At the time of writing in it is just twelve hours to the Cricket World Cup final between India and Sri Lanka and the Tweets are already streaming in on this Twitter Map.

Mibazaar's Google Map shows Twitter messages posted within 1 km of the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. It should be really interesting to see how many Tweets are actually posted from inside the venue during the game.

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Cricket World Cup on Google Maps

World Cup 2011 Twitter Map

The Cricket World Cup started in India today. Mibazaar has stepped up to the wicket and produced this World Cup Twitter map.

The map animates through the latest Tweets mentioning '#cricket'. It picks up all such Twitter messages sent from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

At the time of writing India are setting about Bangladesh with a vengeance and are looking to establish a huge target for Bangladesh to chase down. Judging by Mibazaar's map this is going down rather well with Twitter users in India.

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Follow Bollywood Stars with Google Maps

Bollywood Fans Tweets Map

Some of the biggest film stars currently using Twitter are Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra. Thanks to Mibazaar you can now follow all the latest Tweets about these three Bollywood stars in real-time and on Google Maps.

The Bollywood Fans Tweets Map shows the latest Twitter messages posted about Bachchan, Khan and Chopra. You can select either of the three stars and then the map will animate through the latest messages about them in real-time. You can even choose which region of the world you wish to view the fan Tweets for.

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Indian Premier League Google Maps

The Indian Premier League 2010 cricket season began yesterday. This is the third season of the IPL and in just three short years it has become one of the most watched sports competitions in the world.

IPL Twitter Map

This map shows Tweets tagged #ipl. The map animates through the latest messages posted to Twitter about the Indian Premier League.

To keep up with all the latest discussion about the league all you have to do is load the map and sit back and watch.

Indian Premier Cricket League

Indian Premier Cricket League is another Google Maps Mash up from the prolific Virender Ajmani. This map shows the home grounds of each of the Indian Premier Cricket teams.

Clicking on one of the tagged grounds zooms the map into a satellite image of the clicked ground. An information window gives details of the chosen team, the latest news via RSS and even includes an embedded video about the team.

Indian Premier League 2008

This map is a couple of years old now but much of the information is still relevant for the new season. The map was created using the SadakMap Google Map creation tool.

The map shows the locations of the IPL teams' home grounds.

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Landmarks in India Directions

Sometimes map developers using the Google Maps API come up with a feature so clever that Google themselves end up implementing something very similar on Google Maps itself. That curse has now fallen on RouteGuru.

In India many streets don't have names, which of course can make giving driving directions pretty confusing. To overcome this problem RouteGuru devised a solution which they called 'landmark based' directions. A typical route in RouteGuru will say something like "take the left after restaurant X, pass by theatre Y on the right..etc.".



Guess what today Google have launched a 'landmark' system for driving directions on Google Maps in India. Google are using a new algorithm to determine which landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on importance and closeness to the turns that you need to make. They then include these landmarks in driving directions.

This new development will greatly improve driving directions for Indian users of Google Maps. It probably won't have such a positive impact on RouteGuru's traffic.

However, in Google's defence, the use of landmarks when giving directions in India is very common.

Via: Google India Blog

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Google Maps Goes to Bollywood

BollyTweets

BollyTweets is a Google Map mashup that shows the latest Tweets from a number of Bollwood stars, including Priyanka Chopra, Preity Zinta, Mallika Sherawat, Uday Chopra, Dino Morea and Karan Johar.

The map lets you select the Bollywood star whose Tweets you want to see from a menu on the left hand side of the screen. When you select a star the map then animates through their last ten Tweets, geo-tagging them by the star's profile location.

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Buses of India on Google Maps

Tell My Route

Tell My Route uses Google Maps to show the routes of buses in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Pune and Mumbai.

Using the map it is possible to enter your starting point and destination (with predictive text). All possible bus routes are then shown on the map with necessary bus changes shown on the map with map markers.

It is also possible to change the map view from Google Maps to Bing Maps or Yahoo Maps.

Also See

Bangalore Live Bus Tracking
BusBus.in - Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai bus route map

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Bangalore, Chennai & Mumbai Bus Map

BusBus.in

Busbus.in uses Google Maps to show the routes of buses in Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai.

It is possible to search for routes from a drop-down menu. The route is then shown on the map with a coloured polyline and the bus stops on the route are shown with map markers.

It is also possible to search for a bus route by clicking on your start point and your destination on the map. Busbus.in then displays the best route for your chosen journey.

Also See

Bangalore Live Bus Tracking

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More Indian Cities Get Google Transit

Google Maps has added transit information to a number of Indian cities.

In Kolkata Google Transit can now plan trips on the Kolkata Metro. In Hyderabad you can plan your journey on the Hyderabad Multi Modal Transit System. Delhi has transit information for Delhi Metro Rail and in Chennai you can plan your journey on the Chennai MRTS.



India Rail Info

If you want information about India's huge rail network (which transports an amazing 8 million passengers every day) you should consult India Rail Info. The site's database seems to contain every station and train route in India.

The site shows timetables for each route and train on the network. When you click on an individual train in the timetable a link to a Google Map appears. The map shows the route of the train alongside the train's planned stops. It is even possible to get information about the train's current status.

Via: Information Madness

Indian Trains

Indian Trains shows the approximate location of trains which are currently running on the Indian railway system. It is possible to show the location of any train by simply entering the train's number and pressing 'go'.

If you want to test the map you can find train numbers at erail.in. The location of the train is shown on the map via a red marker. Clicking on the marker reveals the time when the marker was plotted. The location is automatically refreshed every 2 minutes.

Bangalore Live Bus Tracking

This site is tracking buses of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation live on a Google Map. The buses all carry GPS units so the map is able to update locations once a minute.

It is possible to track all BMTC buses at once or select an individual bus to track. If you click on a bus map marker you can get the route information and speed of the bus. There is also a mobile phone version of this map, so it is possible to work how long you will have to wait for a bus when you are out and about in Bangalore.
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Tracking Bangalore Buses on Google Maps

Bangalore Live Bus Tracking

This site is tracking buses of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation live on a Google Map. The buses all carry GPS units so the map is able to update locations once a minute.

It is possible to track all BMTC buses at once or select an individual bus to track. If you click on a bus map marker you can get the route information and speed of the bus. There is also a mobile phone version of this map, so it is possible to work how long you will have to wait for a bus when you are out and about in Bangalore.

This map comes from the same developer as the Indian Train Tracker.

Other Indian Google Maps Mashups

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Indian Elections on Google Maps - Updated

Indian MP's With Pending Criminal Cases

Mibazaar has created this Google Map to show the Indian Members of Parliament who have pending criminal cases. The names of the MP's concerned are listed in the the map sidebar. It is possible to click on the names in the sidebar or on the map markers to open an information window that details the current charges against the MP.

Vote Report India

Ushahidi, the crowdsourcing crisis information platform, have teamed with SwiftRiver and eMoksha to produce this citizen-driven election monitoring platform for the 2009 Indian general elections.

India is the world’s largest democracy but in past elections there have often been controversies over the illegal use of government resources for campaigning, incidences of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric in campaign speeches, and allegations of violence, intimidation and other irregularities.

Vote Report India have partnered with citizens’ networks, human rights organizations, and journalists to contribute direct SMS, email and web reports on violations. It is aggregating these direct reports with news reports, blog posts, photos, videos and tweets related to the elections from all relevant sources, in one place, on a Google Map.

2009 Lok Sabha Elections Map

The Lok Sabha is the directly elected lower house of the Parliament of India. This year there will be a general election for the next five year term of the parliament and Google have teamed up with The Hindustan Times to produce a dedicated page for Indian voters.

The 2009 Lok Sabha Elections uses Google Maps to help Indian voters find and view data about their constituency. If you enter your address into the search box the map will centre on your location and show the constituency boundary. The page will then display 'Development Data' for the constituency, which includes a host of demographic information. You will also be shown the current members of parliament for the constituency.

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