Street Musicians of the World

Rhythm of the World is a Google Map of videos of street musicians performing around the world.

So far the map hasn't got many videos but it is still fascinating listening to the different styles of street music around the world. I love the Tibetan buskers and after a couple of listens even the Mongolian throat singers began to grow on me a little.

I'd love to see this map populated with more non-western styles of street music. You can upload videos to the map by completing a short form, so hopefully the map will soon have a few more examples.

Video Tracking with Google Maps

Ubipix allows anyone with a smartphone to capture, tag, upload and share video or photo collections and view the submissions on a Google Map.

Using the Ubipix application on your phone allows you to capture video alongside a GPS track. Once you have captured your video (or photographs)  you can view and share the video on the Ubipix website. The video is automatically synchronised with a Google Map, so as you watch a video you can also view the location of the camera and its direction during the video's capture.

Below the video and the Google Map you can also view other data, such as the speed and distance travelled whilst shooting the video.

Vintage Film on Google Maps

I've added a few more archive videos to my Street View application There and Then. The app allows you to watch historical films embedded on a Google Maps Street View image of the same scene, as it looks today. 

If you like this sort of thing you should also check out Historypin, which now also includes a few early film scenes, dotted in amongst all the user submitted historical photographs.

The Eurovision Song Contest Map

It has become a bit of a tradition on Google Maps Mania that each year, when the Eurovision Song Contest rears its ugly head, Soren of microformats.dk creates a Google Map of videos of the entries.

This year Soren tells me his ears have been saved from the aural torture of endless Europop thanks to Danmark Radio's Kort og Videor. That's right some brave soul at the Danish national broadcasting station has volunteered to create this year's video map.

Using the map you can select any of the countries that have reached the final of the competition and watch a video of that country's song.

Now my patriotism may be colouring my judgement but this year I think the UK has a good chance of winning with Engelbert Humperdinck's entry 'Love Will Set You Free'. I haven't heard such an awful song for many a year. Therefore it must be the odds on favourite to win this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

Pin Your Media to a Map with Mapinterest

Mapinterest is an interesting social network built on Google Maps. The application allows you to pin media to places on Google Maps, follow other users, check-in at locations and explore places added to the map by other users.

You can connect to Mapinterest with a Twitter or Facebook account. Once you have connected you can begin adding places to the map.  One of the most interesting features of Mapinterest is that it allows you to add media to place locations. Once on a place page you can add a link to a YouTube video, a Flickr or Instagram picture or even a Pininterest page and the video or photo is automatically added to the place page on Mapinterest.

Even if you aren't interested in joining a map based social network Mapinterest is a great way to share your videos and photographs with the world.

What Films Are Showing Nearby?

The Reel Box can show you which films are currently running at your local cinemas.

Once you share your location with The Reel Box the list of films running in nearby movie theatres is listed in the side-panel. If you roll over the movies in the side-panel the cinemas that are currently showing the film are displayed on a Google Map.

As an added bonus you can even watch the official trailer for each selected film.

The Diamond Jubilee on Google Maps

Google and Historypin have created an interactive archive of photographs and videos from Queen Elizabeth's visits and jubilee celebrations over the six decades of her reign.

For the project Historypin want to collect as many contributions as possible, from individuals and archives all around the world. So if you have any Queen Elizabeth related photographs or videos you can add them to the Historypin - Diamond Jubilee Album.

Historypin, if you still haven't seen it, is a great collection of user submitted historical photographs and videos which can be viewed on Google Maps. One of the stand-out features of Historypin is the ability to view the photos and videos superimposed on the modern Google Maps Street View image.

Another stand-out feature is the ability to create your own album. This Golden Jubilee album is a great way to promote this feature. I'm sure Historypin will be getting a lot more UK users due to this new project.

New Years Eve Videos on Google Maps

Last night we saw some amazing fireworks displays taking place throughout the world to herald in the New Year.

Sydney in Australia put on its usual spectacular display. In London, the UK geared up for its Olympics year by putting on an impressive display on the Thames. In Dubai the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa also saw an amazing display of fireworks.

Here is a small collection of some of the best New Year's Eve Fireworks that took place last night.

Happy New Year everybody.

YouTube Videos on Google Maps

MapsTube is the second application this week, after Google Shoot View, to have made a faithful reproduction of the Google Maps design. I'm not sure how happy Google's copyright lawyers will be but, from a user's perspective, the familiar UI does help with navigating the site.

MapsTube is a Google Map that you can search for YouTube videos. You can use the application to search for any subject and matching, geo-tagged, videos will be displayed on the map.

I've already bookmarked this map as it is a great resource to find videos based on real-time current events. For example, this last week it has been a great way to find videos about the Russian election protests in Moscow.

ZDF Videos on Google Maps

Public-service German television broadcaster ZDF has created a Google Map of geo-tagged videos from their archives. ZDF - Geothek lets users browse a map for video clips from ZDF that cover both current and older events around the world.

As well as browsing the video by location a time-line allows users to browse the video by date. Users can view the ZDF videos directly from the map. The map also includes a geographical quiz and information about countries around the world.

California Dreaming with Google Maps

Berlin Designers Annette Bruns and Oliver Spies fulfilled the dream of a lifetime by completing a surfing and skateboarding tour of California. Die Asphaltsurfer is a Google Maps and video application documenting the tour.

Using the application it is possible to view all the stops on the Asphaltsurfer's tour and view videos of the adventures that the pair experienced along the way. The application is another great creation by experienced German developers Ubilabs in partnership with MonstaMovies for the German media company 3Sat.

Win Olympics Tickets with Google Maps

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) are holding a competition called Show Your Best.

The competition can be entered by anyone aged 13-19. Entrants need to videotape, upload and share their 'personal best' moments. The personal best videos are being showcased and can be watched directly from a Show Your Best Google Map.

The two winners of the competition will win a trip to the London 2012 Summer Games, others will appear in a commercial to be broadcast during the London 2012 Olympic Games.

As well as the Google Map, showcasing the submitted videos, users can use a Digital Mash Up Creator to take their uploaded video and instantly see their best mixed into some of the greatest Olympic moments, and share the mashup with their friends.

Share Videos of Your City with Google Maps

My City Lives is an application that allows anyone to share their experiences and stories about a location with a short video. The uploaded videos are showcased on a Google Map based on where the videos were filmed.

Users can explore the uploaded videos by location on the map or by channel, tag or currently trending. It is also possible to ask questions about a location via the 'Voices' tab and hopefully members of the My City Lives community will post a video response.

Watch Live Broadcasts on Google Maps

One of my favourite smartphone apps is live broadcasting application Bambuser. The application lets you broadcast live video straight from you mobile phone or a webcam.

The only bugbear that I used to have with Bambuser is that it didn't have a map of broadcasts happening right now, so that users could select from the currently live broadcasts geographically. Well, now it does!

The live Bambuser Google Map shows the location of live broadcasts, those recorded in the last 24 hours and even older recorded broadcasts. You can even watch the live streams directly from the map.

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Historical Film on Google Street View

I think there is something kind of magical about viewing old film clips on top of the modern Street View image of where the movies were shot. I've updated my There and Then historical videos application to try and improve the user interface.



I've also added a few more historical videos. Some highlights of the more recently added videos to the app include a 1960's film of the Vatican and a 1950's film of the Colosseum in Rome.



I'd love to hear what you think about the app, particularly whether you think the user interface is intuitive or a little difficult to understand. So feel free to tell me what you think in the comments.



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Video Map of Syrian Uprising

The Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Center has created a Google Map of videos shot by activists during Monday’s protests.



To view a video you need to click on a map marker and click through to watch the video on YouTube. The map markers themselves are colour-coded to show towns with reported protests, towns on strike and towns under attack or besieged.



Syria Monday 15/08/2011



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Virtual Travel with Google Maps

Wandercast.TV is a travel video website that aims to allow you to "Watch where you’re going before leaving home."



If you are planning a trip you can search Wandercast.TV for great places to visit and view a video of the location before travelling. Alternatively you can of course just browse Wandercast.TV to virtually visit places in the world that you may never get a chance to visit for real.



Each video on Wandercast.TV is accompanied by a Google Map showing the location where it was shot. If you have your own travel videos then you can also upload them to the Wandercast.TV map.



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One Day on Google Maps

On 10.10.10 One Day on Earth asked people around the world to create a video of their world. The goal of the project was to "create an open shareable archive and documentary film of the world on 10/10/10."

Whilst you wait for the finished full-length film to be released you can browse and watch the thousands of videos that were contributed around the world on this Google Map.

If you click on a map marker you can watch the selected video in the map sidebar. For each video you can view details, such as where and when it was shot and who by.

One Day on Earth

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New York Videos on Google Maps

MyBlockNYC is a Google Maps based application that allows users to upload and explore videos documenting the life and culture of New York City.

The site already boasts nearly 1000 videos and videos representing 734 New York City blocks. The blocks that have videos are displayed on the map with yellow roads. If you click on a yellow line you can watch the video directly from the map.

As well as exploring the videos by location you can filter the results by category, by time of day and season, and by the age and sex of the film-maker.

MyBlocNYC

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Boris' Cabs on Google Maps

This certainly qualifies as the strangest map I've seen for a while. The map creates the scenario of the user wanting to catch a taxi from a famous London landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

The map displays a number of videos of London mayor Boris Johnson moonlighting as a London taxi driver. Each of the videos contains a brief description, by Boris Johnson, of a famous London landmark. When you click on one of the landmarks you can watch the appropriate video and, at the same time, a route is displayed on the map from the landmark to the ICC London Excel conference centre.

There seems to be a little bug in the map that stops the video displaying properly in FireFox but it worked fine for me in Chrome and Internet Explorer.

Take me there Boris!

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