Wallit uses Google Maps Street View as the interface for a unique social network. Wallit allows users to create a virtual wall on Street View anywhere in the world, that they, and other users, can then post messages on.Users of the Wallit iPhone app can find nearby virtual walls and leave a message on the wall. Users actually have to be physically near the location of a virtual wall in order to be able to add a message. This means to leave messages you need the Wallit iPhone application.However, if you don't own an iPhone, you can still browse the virtual walls on the Wallit website using Google Maps Street View.
Nicolas Sarkozy has already conceded defeat to François Hollande in the French presidential election, despite the fact that results from some regions are still coming in.You can view the latest results from the presidential election on a Google Map at Google Politique et élections.Where regional results have already been called that region is color-coded on the map to show which candidate received the most votes.Users of the map can click on any region on the map to view the breakdown of the votes given to each of the two candidates.
Ed Manley, a researcher at University College London and author of the Urban Movementsblog, has analysed Tweets in London looking at the prevalence of swearing on Twitter.Manley looked at the swearing patterns on Twitter by time (swearing seems to get more popular the longer the day progresses) and geographically. A Google Map of the spatial patterns of swearing in London can be viewed on The Guardian website.The map shows that swearing is less prevalent in the centre of the city and more widely practised in London's outer boroughs.So do Londoner's swear more at home than at work?Manley thinks not.You can read his theory about why swearing is more prevalent in some boroughs that others on the Urban Movements blog.
Carte Interactive des Lieux d’Histoire et de Mémoire is a Google Maps guide to over a thousand museums in France.As well as searching for museums by location it is possible to refine the museums displayed on the map by their historical period of interest (prehistory, antiquity, contemporary etc). If you click on a museum's marker an information window opens with details about the museum, a picture gallery and sometime even a video tour of the museum.
What if Google Maps Went Live? is an art project from flux/S that imagines a map with live satellite views.The film was recorded using six cameras attached to fishing rods on the former Philips industrial site Strijp S in Eindhoven. The concept explores ideas around redefining public spaces as places for collaborative performance art.
The project reminds me of Gidivigo's video that previews what Google Maps live satellite view will look like (when it is released in 2050 (maybe)).His video shows a Google Maps satellite view with cars and trains moving as they would if the view was live.
Japanese company Aid DCC has created a nice Google Map that gives directions to their Osaka office with the option of going via different types of store.Here We Go To Aid DCC's Office displays an animated route from the nearest subway stations to the Aid DCC office. Users of the map can choose to get directions that include stops at different categories of stores along the route, e.g. via bread shops, banks or flower shops.The map includes custom designed circular information windows that make a nice change to the default square information windows that you normally associate with the Google Maps API.
InstaBrowsr is a nice little Google Maps application for finding photos submitted to Instagram around any location. The app was knocked up over the weekend so it is a little rough around the edges (e.g. the info windows don't always expand to accommodate all the photos) but I still like it a lot.
There have been a few other Instagram Google Maps developed but the one's I've seen before haven't allowed for the same fine degree of location searching as InstaBrowser. Using InstaBrowsr you can use the Google Map to find photos around any location. So if you want to see photos of your street submitted to Instagram you just need to locate your house on the map.
You can use the map to explore photos from any location. Want to see photos of the London Olympics site? Then just navigate to 'Stratford, London' on the map. Want to see photos of the Golden Gate Bridge? Then pan to or search for San Francisco. Simple!
The BioCaster Global Health Monitor is a Google Map showing outbreaks of known and emerging infectious diseases around the world. The map works by text mining over 1,400 RSS news feeds for information about emerging diseases.You can search for news about individual diseases. It is also possible to search the map by date. You can choose to view headlines for the present day or the previous thirty days. You can also look at any specific weekly period over the last four weeks. The timeline control below the map allows you to view an animation of the past thirty days on the map.
HealthMap is another Google Maps based application that plots real-time infectious disease outbreaks from around the world.The map gathers data from disparate sources, including online news aggregators, eyewitness reports, expert-curated discussions and validated official reports.
If you want to find out what your neighbors are saying on Twitter or, if you want to view the stream of Tweets surrounding an event, then you should try Twitter Nano.Twitter Nano allows you to watch a real-time stream of Twitter messages around any location. To use the application you just need to set the location you wish to view with the provided Google Map. The live stream of Tweets is then automatically displayed beneath the map.You can start and stop the stream at any time by using the 'start' and 'pause'
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.
TNC Maps is a collection of Google Maps from Nature Conservancy scientists, in collaboration with governments, scientists and conservation organizations around the world. The site includes over 80 global maps describing the state of terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats worldwide. The maps provide a great insight into nature conservancy around the world. Users can select a map from the drop-down menu and the Google Map is automatically updated to show a heat-map of the selected data. The available data includes information on many conservancy issues, such as forest clearing, threatened species and habitat loss. All the data from the maps is held in Fusion Tables and can be downloaded via the link beneath the map.
The First Peoples' Language Map of B.C. Google Map displays information about the languages spoken by the 203 First Nation communities in British Columbia.If you zoom in on an area on the map then markers will appear that show the languages spoken in that region. If you open an information window you can click through to view details about how many fluent speakers of the selected language are left.
Did you know that there are 192 endangered or dead languages in the United States? That figure includes Coushatta, which is spoken by 350 members of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. It also includes Paviotso, which is spoken by 400 people in Oregon, Nevada, California and Idaho.The UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger highlights the endangered languages listed in UNESCO’s Atlas. It is possible to browse the world's endangered languages on the Google Map via a search box or by zooming into individual countries on the map.The languages are shown on the map by coloured markers. The map markers reflect the level of danger to the language. Black markers indicate languages that are already dead, red markers those that are critically endangered.
The Atlanta Health Inspections Map is a beautiful Stamen Design OpenSteetMap that uses the Google Maps API and Fusion Tables to visualise restaurant health inspection scores in the metro Atlanta area.As well as being a thing of beauty the map has a useful purpose in showing Atlanta diners which restaurants are safest to eat in. The red map markers indicate the restaurants with the lowest health inspection scores and the green markers those restaurants that passed their inspections with flying colors.If you select a restaurant's marker on the map you can click through to read the full health inspection report for that establishment.
Shadow Days is an impressive Google Maps based application designed to promote John Mayer's new song Born and Raised.Shadow Days allows you to watch an animated Street View movie of any journey within the USA. To create your own movie you just need to set a starting point and choose a destination. You can then choose to watch as the application animates through selected Street Views from your journey route or view Street View thumbnail images moving along the route on a Google Map.As the movie plays you can listen to Mayer's new single Born and Raised.
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.
