The New Obsession With Online Mapping
from the places-to-go dept
After the initial burst of online maps from Yahoo and Mapquest, it had seemed like the online map world had settled down, other than an occasional complaint that the maps or driving directions were wrong. That completely changed recently when online maps became "hot" again, as the existing companies started upgrading their mapping features and new entrants like Google and Amazon/A9 entered the space. Now, it seems like everyone is talking about online maps. Both Wired and CNET have stories about online mapping this morning. News.com has a completely random and totally unscientific test comparing a single set of directions across a bunch of the sites (and then comparing it to how a single, randomly chosen, taxi driver would drive the same route). Meanwhile, Wired is running a short piece about how more readily available maps change the way people do things, whether it's where to place new McDonald's franchises to the latest map mashups that are suddenly becoming popular.
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a bleg
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Re: a bleg
But might I suggest that if you can't type Google Maps into Google to find the information yourself, you may not be quite ready to use such a tool.
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maps and "internet maps"
On a serious not, if you want to try a free internet mapping tool that enables you to generate "internet maps" of websites based on issues, try
www.govcom.org
Dr. Richard Rogers of the University of Amsterdam, and a friend from undergrad started it and the project was funded by Soros.
Rogers has written a couple of books on internet mapping and politics on the web. See Amazon UK.
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geotouch
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