Saturday, May 02, 2009

Interactive maps


I got a question from someone about maps. I thought I could list a few mapping services I came across. I have to admit that I don't do a lot with maps myself so far, I tried a google map for Ghana, but failed because the bandwidth did not allow us to map everyone. But for places with good internet connectivity, it can be great to try and map for instance participants. Regularly, I have a lot at the map of visitors to this map with sitemeter, it's great to see the worldwide readership (see picture here).

There are a few interactive- web2.0 mapping services that are easy to use to create a map. Of course with interactive maps the data depend on the number of participants willing to add their information to the maps. It is a great way of starting an international online workshop.
  • A famous one is frappr.
  • You can make your own customized map with wayfaring, for instance a map of your life (if you haven't lived in the same street your whole life that is...). I could do that because people have said that my CV reads like a travel guide :).
  • You can make your own google map (click on my maps) and with mymapsplus, you can embed that map (=show) it in your site or blog if you want.
  • With clustrmaps you can map the visitors of a site, this is similar to the map that sitemeter offers when you have it installed for your blog.
  • Trippermap allows you to show your flickr photos via a map. Of course you need to add locations to your photos on flickr to be able to create such a map.
An example of a map used for activism is the Access Denied map about online censorship. Twittermap.nl is an attempt to map all Dutch twitterers. War on Gaza mapped incidents. And milieukontakt is using Google earth in combination with a wiki to map environmental issues.

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