january 2006 archives

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Looking for a bit of direction online?

Then you are most likely female! According to a report released last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, which researches the impact of the Internet, 87% of women who use the Internet turn to the Web for directions and maps, compared with 82% of men who are online - a statistically significant difference.

On average, Pew Internet found that a 84% of the respondents had used the Web at least once to search for a map or driving directions. Only using email (90%) or a search engine (91%) scored higher! However, on a daily basis, only 7% go online for maps or directions. For comparison, the same percentage of respondents went online to read someone else's blog!

But how many women are actually involved in providing online maps? Does it matter? Joking aside, is it really necessary to take gender into account when developing online mapping applications? Just curious.  permanent link for this entry

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Yet another mapping book

What do you get when you combine Google Hacks and Mapping Hacks? Google Maps Hacks, of course! So, if you enjoyed reading Mapping Hacks, or thought it was a bit over your head, I'm sure you are going to like this title! You've still got the mapping, but this time round without the steep learning curve: most of the techy stuff is abstracted through the API.

With the tricks and techniques you'll learn from Google Maps Hacks, you'll be able to adapt Google's satellite map feature to create interactive maps for personal and commercial applications for businesses ranging from real estate to package delivery to home services, transportation and more.

However, if you don't shy away from the command line interface, don't worry. Rich and Schuyler, authors of the Mapping Hacks book, also wrote this new title, so there is enough material for the code-savvy to enhance Google Maps with your own data and functionality.

Just to show how easy it is to integrate Google Maps into your app, have a look at the photo gallery here at webmapper. With many photos, the gallery offers a map of the location where the photo was taken, e.g. the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. Admittedly, it's something like A9 BlockView Images or Mappr or Flickrmaps, but without sharing the photos.  permanent link for this entry