Google Maps Mania

Floor Plan Maps With the Google Maps API

2009-11-21T09:15:00.002-05:00

Office Floor Plans

This mashup is an interesting proof of concept of how the Google Maps API can be used to create an interactive office plan, complete with employee profiles. At the moment the map is just a demonstration of the possibilities, but it is also a working model so you can play with and explore the map's functionality.

The map overlays floor plans of an office directly on the building's satellite view in Google Maps. There are four overlays, one for each floor of the office building. It is possible to switch between each floor using the buttons in the top right corner of the map (replacing the normal map type buttons).

The mashup can also map the positions of employees on the floor plan. The map includes a search box so you can search for employees or you can select an employee from a drop down menu. There is even a form which allows the user to add an employee (and employee details) to the map.

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Ski Season on Google Maps

2009-11-20T12:28:00.003-05:00

The London Times Ski Deals Map

The London Times has produced what will probably be the first of many ski related map mashups for this ski season. The Times' ski correspondent Mark Frary has used Mapalist.com to create a Google Map that shows ski deals in Europe.

The map ranks deals into four categories: amazing (>50% off), fantastic (>40% off), good (>30% off) and reasonable (anything else). The location of the deals is shown on the map with black, red, blue and green map markers. If you are a chalet owner, tour operator or travel agent you can add ski deals to the map by completing The Times' ski deals form.

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Important Google Maps Developer News

2009-11-20T05:12:00.004-05:00

Google have announced that in a few weeks time they will be adding new functionality to the Google Maps API v2 that allows Google to log the location and content of the markers and/or infowindows that are displayed in Google Maps mashups. Google then plans to use the gathered data created by Google Maps developers within the main Google Maps site.

This could obviously have huge benefits for map developers. Presumably Google will acknowledge or link to the creators of this third party content which, in theory, should drive traffic from the main Google Maps site to the sites that created the content.

However I'm sure that there are a number of developers and web sites that won't want Google to reuse their content in this way. Therefore Google are allowing sites to opt out of sharing their content. Here is what the Google Geo Developers Blog says,

To ensure that this new feature doesn't cause any issues, we have put a few controls in place:

We only index data from maps that have been viewed by many unique users. For example, maps only viewed by you and a few friends won't be indexed.
If your page is protected by robots.txt, we will not index your content.
You can opt-out of the logging by specifying "indexing=false" when loading the API.
If you are a Maps API Premier customer, we will not index data from your maps, unless you opt into indexing by passing in "indexing=true".

The impact of this move on users of the main Google Maps site should of course be hugely beneficial. Now, as well as seeing local user created content, from Google My Maps and Mapplets, users of Google Maps will potentially be able to view content from the thousands of Google Maps mashups created using the Google Maps API.

Programmable Web has recorded over 1,800 sites that use the Google Maps API. My guess is, however, that the number of websites using the Google Maps API runs into the tens of thousands. Therefore Google have a potentially enormous data set that they can leverage to enhance Google Maps as a product.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog

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Share Your Location with Google Maps

2009-11-19T09:34:00.000-05:00

ImWaitingHere

I’m Waiting Here is a Google Map based service that you can use to easily point where you are and what are you doing. You can then share this point with your Facebook friends. Using the map you can also see other users' positions and their profiles and communicate with them.

To show where you are you just click on the map at your location and explain what you are doing there. You can then choose to share your point via Facebook. The site also has a number of other features, such as, in site messaging, user profiles, adding friends and photo galleries.

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Google Maps Integrated Travel Planning

2009-11-19T08:33:00.004-05:00

maps.google.com.sg

Google Maps have teamed up with Singapore's Land Transport Authority to provide integrated travel directions for the country, complete with public transport and real-time traffic information.

Google Maps Singapore can give public transport directions with up to three options for routes. Users are then able to choose their preferred route and get step-by-step directions.

Driving directions use real-time traffic information from LTA to show the quickest routes. Users can then drag the suggested routes to avoid congestion (shown in red). Traffic conditions are updated every few minutes on the map and information from LTA is supplemented with crowdsourced information from mobile phone users. Users with Google Maps for Mobile can feedback on current traffic conditions and the data is then updated on the map.

maps.google.com.sg - Google Maps Singapore
m.google.com.sg/maps - Google Maps for Mobile Singapore

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All Literature Begins with Geography

2009-11-19T07:07:00.003-05:00

Poetry Atlas

This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

(From Composed Upon Westminster Bridge - William Wordsworth)

The poet Robert Frost said that "All literature begins with geography". The Poetry Atlas believe that this is true and also believe that nearly everywhere on Earth, at some point, has had a poem written about it.

The Poetry Atlas has therefore created a Google Maps mashup to try and geotag as many poems as they can and also find poems for as much of the world as possible. If you know about a poem that isn't on the map you can e-mail it to Poetry Atlas and they will add it to the map.

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The SoundCloud Google Map

2009-11-19T01:37:00.000-05:00

Tracks on a Map

This Google Map shows the locations of bands that have uploaded tracks to SoundCloud and even lets you listen to the tracks directly from the map.

The tracks can be selected by genre of music. Selecting to view markers by genre gives an interesting view of which types of music are popular in different parts of the world at the moment.

Clicking on a map marker opens an information window which lists the tracks loaded from that location. Clicking on 'play' lets you listen to the selected track. I'm currently listening to the Superfantastics out of Brighton, although something tells me this isn't actually where they are from.

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Where Politicians go to Party

2009-11-18T18:02:00.004-05:00

LobbyData.com Party Map

The Capitol Hill Club in Washington is doing rather well out of politicians. Over the last two years it has hosted 689 receptions, lunches and dinners for Washington politicians.

The LobbyData.com Party Map shows the favourite party venues for Republican and Democrat politicians. Venues are shown on the map by appropriately cocktail glass shaped map markers. The colour of the markers represent the percentage of Republican or Democrat events held at each venue.

It is possible to search the map by location, by political party, by politician name or by date. The map also comes with a handy 'link to this view' option.

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Sherlock Holme's London Google Map

2009-11-18T10:05:00.005-05:00

Londonist Sherlock Holmes Map

We all know that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street now, thanks to The Londonist, we can follow all of the great detective's known movements on Google Maps.

The Londonist have used Map Channels to plot every London location mentioned in Conan Doyle's famous novels. Having plotted Holmes' movements The Londonist have even undertaken a little detective work of their own.

Unsurprisingly, they find that there is a lot of action around the Baker Street area, interestingly however Holmes never once set foot in nearby Soho. There is also a lot amount of action around Crystal Palace and the "reason is elementary when you know that Conan Doyle lived for a time in South Norwood".

If you want to see some of the locations outside of London you can always check out the handy Google Maps provided on Google Books. For example, this page has a map of a all the locations in The Complete Sherlock Holmes Volume One.

Via: http://twitter.com/vicchi

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One Stop Google Map for Munich

2009-11-18T09:50:00.003-05:00

WerWieWas

WerWieWas is a new website that uses Google Maps to present local news, events and recommended locations in Munich, Germany. Users of the map can add their own news, announcements or recommend locations.

It is possible to navigate the different categories of map marker via the tabs at the top of the map. Selecting a tab loads the markers for that category and also loads information for each location under the map.

Adding a location to the map is very simple. The user simply chooses a category from the menu under the map , places a marker at the correct location and completes a short form.

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Explore the Earth with PublicEarth

2009-11-18T07:52:00.004-05:00

PublicEarth

PublicEarth is a 'wiki for places'. The site uses Google Maps as the means to display crowdsourced location recommendations. Registered users can rate places, get personalised suggestions, create collections, or add comments about added locations.

The unique selling point for PublicEarth could be the huge number of categories of locations. PublicEarth has over 450 categories, these include the usual categories such as restaurants and entertainment but also more esoteric topics such as 'Nut Harvesting and 'Glass-blowing Studios'.

The site allows the user to plan a trip or a day out and then send the saved locations to a GPS device, a mobile phone or e-mail them to friends. PublicEarth also lets you display your saved places on your own website or blog by creating and embedding a widget.

The site even comes with an API that allows developers to access PublicEarth's huge database of recommendations.

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Introducing the NextStop API

2009-11-18T01:13:00.001-05:00

NextStop API

Nextstop is an online travel guide and social recommendation website that makes extensive use of Google Maps. I was very impressed with nextstop when I first reviewed the site back in May.

Here's what I said in the original review,

"There are already a number of well established social recommendation websites out there but the ease of use of nextstop should ensure it becomes a major player in the market. Adding recommendations to nextstop is truly an enjoyable experience, which can't be said of many social recommendation sites."

Nextstop are now opening up all of those user contributed recommendations with the release of an API. There is a lot that developers can do with the API, and nextstop have provided some great API examples. Map developers will probably be most interested in the map example and the guide map example.

I've just spent a couple of hours creating maps with the API and I must say it is one of the easiest API's that I've ever used. I can definitely see myself adding nextstop recommendations to a lot of the maps that I've personally created.

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Belgium Votes to Demolish Royal Palace

2009-11-17T10:59:00.005-05:00

Le Batiment Le Plus Laid de Belgique

Here is a really cool Google Map from Belgium demolition company Jan Stallaert. The map let users submit and vote on the ugliest buildings in Belgium. Jan Stallaert promised to demolish the winning building with glee.

However Pascal Laureyn from Belgeoblog tells me that the competition didn't exactly go as planned. Instead of voting for Belgium's ugliest buildings many users just voted for the building that they most wanted to see destroyed. Popular buildings to be demolished were the Royal Palace, the headquarters of Belgium's political parties and the stadiums of a number of football teams.

This is a great first story from Google Maps Mania new Belgium contributor Belgeoblog.

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Annotating Street View Panoramas

2009-11-17T07:02:00.003-05:00

Mapsicle

Mapsicle is a new Street View annotation library. The library allows you to easily overlay content, such as markers and information windows onto Street View.

Using the Mapsicle library you can:

Create and show markers at various locations on Street View
Show markers that are outside of the field of view
Create information windows at locations

The library is available in the Maps Util library with a developer's guide, reference section, and examples that show how to implement custom infowindows, markers, and map integration.

As a demonstration of the new library the developers have created a street tagging website.

StreetTag

As the name suggests StreetTag lets you tag Street Views. You can search for any location in the world (that has a Street View) and tag the Street View with an appropriate comment.

It is possible to search for previous tagged locations by destinations and by category. It is also possible to vote for tags submitted by other users.

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog

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Find a School With Google Maps

2009-11-17T06:39:00.003-05:00

okSchool Explorer

The okSchool Explorer is a Google Maps mashup to help parents find and decide on a school for their children. The map is an entry into the MashUpAustralia contest.

To use the map just click on one of the school map markers. This will load a beautiful looking chart describing how family dense the towns are. Green describes a town filled with families, while red describes a town with less.

A series of connections is displayed in the chart to other schools via emergency services. Family related statistics are then compared to the average across the region. You can filter schools using the colour chart key. Charts usually display statistics when rolled over. Where possible, they are also broken down by gender.

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Google Geo Are Hiring

2009-11-17T06:13:00.002-05:00

Mano Marks (http://twitter.com/manomarks) from Google has contacted me to say that Google have some positions available in the Geo Developer relations team.

Here's the information that he sent me:

We're excited to announce that we have some positions on our Geo Developer relations team. Geo Developer Relations helps developers outside of Google build on our Geo platforms, Google Maps and Earth. Our team is passionate about the web and web technologies. We have two positions available:

Developer Advocate: These are our technology evangelists. You'll be working directly with partners companies, executives and engineers, to help them put their Geo content on the web. And you'll advocate on their behalf with the Maps and Earth teams at Google. You will use your strong and well-rounded coding skills in a wide range of web/AJAX technologies along with excellent writing and presenting skills. And you have a passion for all things Geo.

Developer Programs Engineer: It's your job to help spread Geo into the Web. You will help group the Google Geo Developers community by helping 3rd party developers put their content into Google Earth and Maps. You will work with Google Geo engineering teams to improve Maps and Earth and make them even better for developers to work with. You're a driven team player with strong web application development skills who loves troubleshooting challenging coding issues and is passionate about developer communities. And you have a passion for all things Geo.

Link: http://sites.google.com/site/googdevreljobs/

Street View Type Map for Buenos Aires

2009-11-17T01:20:00.000-05:00

Fotocalle

Fotocalle have released a Street View type service for Buenos Aires, Argentina. The site stitches together a number of interactive 360 degree panoramas of the city. The panoramas, just like Street View, include links to adjacent panoramas.

Fotocalle uses Google Maps as a navigation tool. Again like Street View the roads on the map with panoramas are coloured blue and it is possible to drag the map marker to view the panorama at a location.

Fotocalle use Nikon Cameras with Segways and cars to capture their panoramas. Unlike Street View they also provide interior interactive photos of to connect the outside with the inside of buildings.

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Turkish Earthquakes Google Maps Widget

2009-11-16T15:24:00.005-05:00

Sondeprem.net

Sondeprem.net have created an embeddable widget that shows the latest Turkish earthquake news on a Google Map. By cutting and pasting a short piece of code you can add the map to your own website or blog.

The map itself animates through the latest earthquake news in Turkey. Map markers show the location of the news and a short headline is displayed at the bottom of the map.

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Google Maps & Mashups Blog for Belgium

2009-11-16T10:57:00.005-05:00

Belgeoblog
Belgeoblog is an excellent source for information and news about Google Maps and Google Earth related developments in Belgium. The blog also has a number of interesting Google Maps mashups.

Typisch Belgisch

Typisch Belgisch is a collection of interesting Belgium satellite views from Google Maps. The views are categorised into a number of categories, 'Special Attractions', 'Useless Work', 'Flying Objects', Military' and 'Photogenic Phenomena'.

Brussels in 1953

This map displays a collection of historical photographs of Brussels. Most of the photos are from 1953, but the map also contains a number of older photographs of the city.

Brussels Metro Map
A map that shows the Metro lines of Brussels.

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Sharing Your Location for a Specified Time

2009-11-16T08:31:00.003-05:00

Glympse
My guess is that most people aren't prepared to allow location tracking websites to have blanket coverage of their movements. Many services try to solve this issue by allowing the user to set the granularity of the location data being tracked. Fire Eagle, for example, allows the user to set the level of access to road, neighbourhood or city level.

Glympse however are betting on the fact that it isn't the degree of accuracy of location that concerns most people but the issue of time. Glympse therefore allows the user to share their location for a limited amount of time.

Using Glympse the user can use their smart phone to show their location on a Google Map for a specified period. To use the service you simply select a contact, set a duration, and hit send.

Here's the introductory video,

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Satellite Tracking in Street View

2009-11-16T01:21:00.000-05:00

ToriSat
ToriSat is an amazing satellite tracking website that allows anyone to track satellites on Google Maps, in the Google Earth Browser plug-in and even in Google Street View. The Google Map view shows the path of the satellite around the Earth and the Google Earth option allows you to view the path of the satellite as if you were looking down from space.

What really impresses me, however, is the Street View option that allows the user to view the satellite superimposed on top of Google's Street View imagery. This is really useful as it shows the elevation of the satellite as it passes overhead. Oh, and you can see all three views at the same time.

You can see the tracking in action in the video below,

The default satellite is the International Space Station but you can select other satellites to track, including the Hubble telescope. You can also change the location of the observation point by clicking the cross at the top of the Street View and dragging the map marker to your location.

ToriSat also comes with a Twitter feed that will Tweet you when the ISS is approaching your location (the site will suggest the Twitter feed to follow from your saved location). There is even an option to save the ISS approaching schedules to your Google Calender.

I'm simply in awe of the developers of ToriSat. Check out some of the other amazing stuff they are involved in (including the Street View SpaceBike) here.

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Australian Mashup Competition Round-Up

2009-11-15T08:11:00.005-05:00

MashUpAustralia
The MashupAustralia competition is now closed. There has been an amazing 78 entries and the vast majority of the entries involve maps. Over at the All Things Spatial blog Arek has started to review all the map related mashups.

Arek has kindly allowed me to republish some of the highlights from his round-up. However, if you want to see the full round-up, which includes those mashups that use other map API's, you should head over to All Things Spatial.

Victoria: Fire Ready

Depicts locations of fire brigades and police stations in the vicinity of a chosen address. Distance circles of 10, 25 and 45km from the address are marked to allow users to discern how quickly aid can arrive in case of emergency. The application also plots incidents reported by Victorian Country Fire Authority as well as current weather and wind conditions from the Bureau of Meteorology.

FireMash
Firemash is an attempt to match official announcements from NSW Rural Fire Services with incidents reported by a community via Twitter. Users can plot location of their houses on the map and if any incidents are reported in the vicinity, the application will retweet the information to alert the user. Interesting concept although its usefulness will be difficult to demonstrate at the moment because there are no fires reported in the entire NSW!

AuScope Portal

This map built with Google Maps and using OGC web services (WMS and WFS) feels like a fully featured online GIS but I found it a bit cumbersome to use (I had real difficulties in displaying and removing layers and especially managing order of layers for display). Great collection of geology related information though!

LocateMe

This application was submitted by the Western Australia Landgate crew. It presents demographic profiles for areas of interest and lists government services available in the area. It uses Google Map as a background layer but is built with OpenLayers - it certainly does not behave like a real Google Map. Once again, the application is styled as a fully featured online GIS with traditional navigation tools - which makes it rather awkward to use (ie. no double click to zoom, no zoom slider tool, requires selection of buttons to either zoom in or out or pan). It could have been quite an interesting application if it wasn't for so many layers being restricted with a password. And I couldn't get demographic profiles to load at all.

Data Aggregator
This is a very slick and well built Google Map application that displays almost all datasets released for the MashupAustrlia competition, and more. It is easy to navigate and certainly much easier to use than any of the above mentioned mapping mashups. Which is quite surprising since the application is using hierarchical and expandable layer selector, very similar to the other applications mentioned today. A unique feature of Data Aggregator is a couple of custom controls for changing display options for markers and vector overlays.

To be continued…

Cross posted from All Things Spatial

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Week of Geo Hacking

2009-11-14T06:31:00.002-05:00

There are a number of geo-related events coming up this week.

If you are in the Mountain View area today you could pop along to Random Hacks of Kindness. Random Hacks of Kindness is an initiative bringing together disaster relief experts and software engineers to work on identifying key challenges to disaster relief, and developing solutions to these critical issues.

If you are in Denmark (Nov 18-19) then you shouldn't miss Kortdage (Map Days). This is a major conference with 47 speakers. As part of the conference there will be a 24 hours mashup competition to use free public data and free tools and web services to create on-line maps.

If you happen to be in London on Thursday (19th) then you can attend the latest Geomob meet. There will be presentations at the event from CloudMade, mapme.at, Mapstraction, Skyhook Wireless and Jaggeree.

In New York on Friday (20th) there is a Google Hackathon. This should be a great event for anyone interested in Google's geo-related APIs.

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Cycling and Jogging VR with Street View

2009-11-14T05:30:00.005-05:00

Stationary Cycling through Google Street View
Using a head-mounted-display, an exercise bike and Google Street View Bako.ca has created a virtual reality VR environment for stationary cycling.

Bako.ca acknowledges that the project was partly inspired by the Wii and Street View project Tokyo Jogging.

Dev.tori.st
Dev.tori.st have also developed a stationary exercise 'Spacebike' that allows them to cycle over cities in Google Earth.

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Google Map of the World's Top Universities

2009-11-14T04:29:00.004-05:00

World's Best Universities Map

This Google Maps mashup from Mibazaar shows the locations of the world's top 100 universities, as based on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings and reported by US News.

The universities are ranked in six areas; Academic Peer Review, Employer Review, Student to Faculty, International Faculty, International Students, Citations per Faculty. On the map the universities' rankings are shown by numbered map markers. The universities are also listed in numerical order in the map sidebar.

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