Google Maps Mashups 7

John Harlin Live Google Map

 

American author and adventurer John Harlin has set out on an epic journey to follow the entire Swiss border under his own power, a 2,000km odyssey with more than 170,000m of climbing. You can follow John’s journey on swissinfo.ch’s John Harlin Live Google Map.

The map shows John’s current position (at the time of writing he appears to be approaching the Matterhorn). The map also includes the amazing photographs that John has taken on his journey, links to John’s daily reports and some of the interesting features and points of interest that John is passing on his epic journey.

 

Browse the New York Times by Location


You can now browse the New York Times by location using the Longitude Google Map.

Geotagged news stories are displayed on the map with a Times ‘T’ logo. If you click on a map marker an information window opens with ten recent articles from the paper for that location.

Beneath the map you can view a list of locations from today’s edition of the paper. Clicking on these links will also open the relevant information window on the map.

Read Write Web

Vermont Flooding 2011 Google Map

Google Crisis Response has released a Vermont Flooding 2011 Google Map.

The map shows road and bridge closures in the state. It is also possible to overlay other layers on the map showing:

  • cloud imagery
  • USGS Real-time Streamflow
  • significant river flood outlook
  • Red Cross shelters
  • Vermont county borders

Build a Google Map

Build-A-Map is a new Google Maps creation tool to help users build visually appealing, functionally rich, and interactive maps with minimal effort.

Using the simple point-and-click interface users can create custom maps, publish the map on Build-A-Map’s servers and then simply embed it in their own website or application. You can view examples of Google Maps created with Build-A-Map on the demo page.

Currently Build-A-Map is in beta testing. You can sign up now to be an early user.

The Circle Count Top 100 Google+ Users Map

Everyone knows that the real purpose of social networks is to gauge how popular you are by the number of followers you can collect. Circle Count is a new website that is tracking the most followed people on Google+.

Circle Count lets you enter your own Google+ profile and find your own Circle Rank based on the number of your followers. You can even get a button for your website or blog that shows how many followers you have on Google+. The application also provides a nice graph that shows your follower history.

The Circle Count Top 100 Google+ Users Map is a Google Map of the top 100 Google+ users worldwide (based on the number of followers). The top 100 is actually a pretty good list of some of the most important and influential players on the internet (and Ashton Kutcher).

If you want to follow Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Pete Cashmore, Vic Gundotra (the top 5) or connect with other important people on Google+ then this is a pretty good place to start.

Map of New York Evacuation Zones

The New York Times’ New York City Hurricane Evacuation Zones Google Map shows the three evacuation zones in New York.

The zones are based on the strength of the hurricane making landfall. New York is preparing for the threat of storm surges with the closure of the entire public transportation system.

Climate Central has created a Google Map showing the areas in lower Manhattan, New Jersey and Brooklyn that are most at risk of storm surges from Hurricane Irene.

Yesterday Google released their Crisis Response 2011 Hurricane Season Google Map. Today they have created a map just for New York City: 2011 Hurricane Irene New York City.

The New York City map shows the forecasted track of Hurricane Irene as well as the evacuation zones and evacuation centers. It is also possible to view additional layers on the map showing:

  • Storm Surge Probabilities
  • The Red Cross National Shelter System
  • Cloud Imagery
  • Evacuation Routes

Google Maps Mashups 6

A cool Google Map mashup  of two French guys journey

Phillipe and Josue are two French guys who have taken a year’s sabbatical and decided to travel around the world. To help the world follow their journey they have created a cool Google Map of their journey that they call, 11 (onze) Mois sans toi(t)

The map shows all the stops that the pair have made on their journey so far. The information for each window includes Tweets, Facebook updates and photographs taken at that location. The map also includes the option for users of the map to add places of interest around the world that they think the guys should visit on their journey.

Your Story with Google Maps

I’m sure everyone has a story to tell – and you can tell yours with this Google Map.

Stories Unbound was created for the Melbourne Writers Festival. It is a social media platform (website and iPhone app), that lets users write and geotag stories wherever and whenever the mood strikes.

You can read submitted stories by selecting a marker on the map. It is also possible to select a story from the slide-out sidebar, where you can also submit your own story by selecting a location on the map.

The Google Maps interface for Stories Unbound uses Google Map Styles to create a map which is in keeping with the Melbourne Writers Festival brand. The clean look of the map, with most of the map labels removed, also creates a clean interface, which encourages the user to explore stories by location.

Google Maps for Flash

Google has announced that the Google Maps API for Flash has been deprecated. This means that no new features will be developed, and only critical bugs, regressions, and security issues will be fixed in the API.

Google says that “use of the Maps API for Flash remains a small percentage of overall Maps API traffic, with only a limited number of applications taking advantage of features unique to the Maps API for Flash.”

Perhaps the one unique feature available in the The Maps API for Flash and not available in the JavaScript API is the 3DMap object. The 3DMap object allows Flash map developers to create oblique map views and rotate Google Maps. It does seems to be a unique feature that was used very little.

The only map that I can remember that used this feature was a really cool application that let you create your own weather map. However the application no longer seems to exist. Luckily I did manage to video the application when it was released, so you can view the 3DMap object put to good use in the video below.

Sadly for map developers the Yahoo Maps API is also on the way out. From September 13th Yahoo will no longer support:

  • ActionScript 2 & 3 (Flash APIs)
  • AJAX Maps 3.6, 3.7, 3.8
  • REST API (Map Image API)
  • Simple API – (No coding)
  • GeoRSS – Version 2

Google Geo Developers Blog

Ghostly International Live Map

The record label and art company Ghostly International has created a Ghostly International – Live Map so that you can follow all their currently performing artists.

The Live Map lets you select an individual artist from the map sidebar and view all their upcoming events on a Google Map. When you select an artist from the sidebar an information window opens with a brief bio of the selected artist.

45° Imagery for 24 cities

Google Maps has had another big update of 45° (bird’s eye view) imagery. 24 new cities, including Lausanne, Switzerland and Girona, Spain, now have oblique view imagery in Google Maps.

To mark the occasion I have put together this Aerial View Slideshow, to highlight some of the best of the 45° imagery now available in Google Maps.

Google LatLong

Local Events with Google Maps

WeGooo is a Google Maps based application for finding nearby events.

Once you enter a location WeGooo displays a Google Map of the location with a time-line of nearby events. You can browse the events in chronological order from the time-line or find events by location by selecting a venue’s marker on the map.

It is possible to change your location on the map by dragging the ‘That’s me’ marker to a new position. If you select an event from the time-line the map will also display a route from your current location to the selected venue.

Fun with Google Maps

The Art of Running – A Tribute to Steve Jobs

Apparently someone called Steve Jobs got a new job this week, news of which seemed to send the world reeling. The news certainly seemed to have a strange effect on Joseph Tame.

Using his iPhone and RunKeeper Joseph set out to create a giant geoglyph of the Apple logo by running around Tokyo.

Don’t Pass Gas

City Slogans is a Google MyMap of witty slogans that towns in the U.S. have invented to try to entice you to visit.

Amongst the gems on offer is Hooker, OK with “It’s a location, not a vocation” and Algona, IA with “Home of the World’s Largest Cheeto”.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

The Google Maps Street View trike has taken a visit to Seaworld Orlando. On his visit he took a number of photographs including this shot of the performing dolphins.