june 2004 archives

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

A match made in...

Yahoo! subsidiary Overture has released a new programme for businesses to reach those customers searching online, but who do their shopping locally: Local Match. It's a direct answer to Google Local. Whereas Overture only covers the US, Google's local targeting is available for advertisers in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

Furthermore, Overture ads are targeted to geographic terms, rather than searcher location like Google. Businesses can have their ads show up in response to terms that are geographically related to its physical location, not just the postcode or town name for example. Although searching using geographic terms isn't new, but with Overture's approach, businesses merely need to provide their physical location and a geographic radius they wish to cover (ranging from 0.5 to 100 miles). Behind the scenes, Overture will automatically add relevant geographical locations. This approach is particularly interesting as it can deal with locations and areas that do not cannot be easily delimited, for example cultural constructs such as the West End or the Midlands.

Monday, June 28, 2004

Maps and architecture

Strolling into a bookshop in Amsterdam last Friday, the latest issue of Archis, magazine for architecture, city and visual culture, caught my eye. The large letters spelled out “A T L A S” on the cover.

Do maps have a purpose if you do not want to know what is there, but if you want to work on what there has to be?

The issue contains many maps, diagrams and other graphic representations. I particularly like the article by Ronald Wall. He discusses a spatial framework of cartographic techniques for research and design to merge and cooperate. Some interesting maps accompany his article, especially the one representing the World Trade Centre Network. One of the institutes participating in the creation of this map is the very RIVM where I work! Another great map is the “Newstaker” map: a London Underground-style map of all the cities where Metro, the free newspaper, is handed out and showing the Metro readership by country.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

Blatant plug

“Multimap” was the fifth most popular query on Google UK in May. Yet another hint that online mapping is really becoming mainstream now.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Salon finder makes it to website of the week

This week Directions Magazine chose the Wella Salonfinder as “website of the week”. The Salonfinder is powered by Multimap.com store finder technology. Entering a postcode, users can find the nearest of 8,000 salons across the UK and find out what products they have in stock.

Each map features several icons depicting the locations of the salons. Below the map, users find contact details, distance to the salon, and a hyperlink to generate directions to the salon in just one click. An overview of the products in stock can only be accessed from the result page. Wella missed an opportunity here, as they could have given users the option to select a product range upon entering their postcode in order to display only those salons that stock a certain product, which would be particularly helpful. Anyway, it's great to see a store locator as “site of the week”. Wella's and Multimap.com are doing a great job making store locators a mainstream web application.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Interactive maps with Flash

The latest release of the National Atlas of Public Health contains many new maps, 22 of which have been created with Flash. Granted, the Atlas includes interactive maps on waiting list information for a few years now. The main reason for these maps to be created with Flash is the monthly update of information and the large number of maps: one for each medical department. Using Flash, it's much quicker to generate a set of new maps with each release of the Atlas.

The new maps that have been added in the latest release are symbol maps. The location of the symbol relates to the location of the principal location of each hospital organisation. The size of the symbol relates to the number of staff a hospital has in a particular department. Moving the mouse over the symbol, it changes colour and the name of the hospital organisation is displayed along with the number of staff member in a particular department. Also, the symbol appears in the map legend for easy overall comparison. Smaller symbols lie on top of larger symbols to ensure visibility. However, smaller symbols may obscure the larger symbols in regions where there are many hospitals. This disadvantage is overcome by making the symbols clickable. When users click on a symbol, the symbol moves to the foreground on top of the smaller symbols.

The gradients in the symbols have been added for consistency with other maps in the Atlas. Usually, gradients are added to simulate perspective in order to create a 3-D symbol. In that case, it's not the area covered by a symbol that indicates the quantity, but the capacity of the the symbol. This would result in a different scaling of the symbols. In the maps presented here, the gradients have been merely added to make the symbols more attractive. Go and check it out!

The interactive maps are not only a novelty because of the visualisation of quantitative information, but also because users can zoom in and pan around the map. To facilitate orientation, users can also switch on and off topography, consisting of built-up areas and main rivers. In future releases, the topography layer will be more detailed and colourful. Also, editors will have more control over the appearance of the map symbol. So check back soon to learn about more developments...

By the way, if you think I have given up on SVG, you're wrong. Learning Flash is a great way to investigate and explore the use of interaction and animation in cartography. When SVG becomes an accepted web format, I will be able to apply my findings to its full potential in SVG.