december 2007 archives

Monday, December 24, 2007

Words divide, images unite

... is the subtitle of the exhibition Lovely Language at the Centraal Museum here in Utrecht as part of Utrecht Manifest 2007. The exhibition focuses on the International System of Typographic Picture Education (ISOTYPE): a visual language of pictograms created by the Austrian sociologist Otto Neurath and the German-Dutch graphic artist Gerd Arntz. Many of the pictograms they developed for the Viennese method of picture statistics we now encounter everywhere, such as traffic and airport signs.

The exhibition not only goes into the works and lives of both men, but also investigates how applicable ISOTYPE still is in the 21st century and shows many examples of recent infographics. It also displays the work of some Dutch artists investigating the frontiers of word and image. Particularly noteworthy are the brand logo alphabet and the newspaper graphics explaining the crash of the El-Al boeing in Amsterdam, the invasion of Iraq, and the attack on the WTC.

Neurath and Arntz are not only pioneers in social statistics, but also contributed to the development of thematic mapping. Among their work you find many examples of statistics combined with maps. For example, Neurath's Society and Economy, a collection of exactly a 100 pictorial charts is not only a statistical work, but an atlas at the same time. Furthermore, many conventional signs and symbols that appear on maps and in atlases can be traced back to the pictograms created by Neurath and Arntz. Looking for some inspiration? This exhibition is certainly worth a visit! In The Hague, there is currently also an exhibition on Gerd Arntz going on. If Utrecht or The Hague is a bit too far, but you happen to read German, check out Bildersprache: Otto Neurath Visualisierungen.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Demise of online mapping in Europe?

Within a month of Navteq acquiring Mapsolute, this week yet another European online mapping company was snapped up as Microsoft bought Multimap for $50 million. This acquisition does not just come out of the blue. As part of a non-exclusive worldwide agreement with Microsoft, Multimap has been reselling MapPoint alongside its own online mapping services already since June 2004. Furthermore, Multimap played an important role in boosting Microsoft's impact in online mapping in the UK at a time when demand for online maps has not grown in the past year. Microsoft Live Local did not enter the UK top 5 mapping websites until May 2007, when Tesco — a long-time Multimap customer — switched from Multimap's own to Microsoft's online mapping platform, boosting Live Local visits by 5 and a half times!

Some interpret the acquisition of Multimap as an attempt by Microsoft to compete with Google Maps. In the global online mapping market, this interpretation is difficult to hold up. Google Maps attracted almost 7 times as much visitors globally as Live Local and Multimap combined in October this year, according to Nielsen.

Mapping website	Global audience
Google Maps	71.5 million
Live Local	7.1 million
Multimap	4.7 million
Nielsen/NetRatings, unique visitors globally, October 2007

Zooming in on the UK top 5 mapping websites only, the acquisition makes more sense. Although Multimap was still number 1 in May when Live Local just entered the top 5, it had surrendered its position to Google Maps in October.

Google Maps
Multimap
Google Earth
Streetmap
Microsoft (Live Search Maps)

Source: Nielsen Online

With Google Maps dethroning Multimap as the UK number 1 mapping website and Ordnance Survey releasing Open Space — its own JavaScript-based mapping API —, Multimap found itself caught in the middle. Ordnance Survey maps have always been a key feature of the Multimap website. In this context, the acquisition by Microsoft is actually quite a graceful way out.

So: who's next? After Map24 and Multimap, Maporama seems a likely target at first sight. Maporama is another European online mapping company selling mapping services to businesses and running a consumer website. Furthermore, there already is a business relationship between Microsoft and Maporama. In June this year, Maporama added Virtual Earth to its portfolio of mapping services... Let's see what 2008 will bring us!

By the way, MapPoint, MSN Virtual Earth, Windows Live Local and Live Search Map are all names for Microsoft's online mapping platform and services. Really, I wouldn't be able to tell you what is what and how one is different from the other. I am certainly not the only one here!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Says one map maker to another

Since I was raised with Dutch school atlases, I had never quite noticed it before: apparently there is a cartographic convention to colour the dominions of the British Empire (or rather the British Commonwealth of Nations nowadays) on the map pink. This led Maya Sonenberg to have the female character in the short story Cartographies say:

Imagine we visited Canada together, one map-maker says to another. Her eyes sparkle in her still face. Wouldn't you expect it to be pink?.

I really like this quote as it sparks many questions (and also is a good one for the Stanfords series Maps in Literature). Is it that pink is just a faded red to make it stand out against the rest of the world, or is there more to it? Are there any other conventional colours for other colonial empires (French, German, Dutch)?

Has the proliferation of online mapping in recent years markedly changed our perception of maps and the world it represents? Have new conventions started to appear (e.g. red-dot fever), or have people raised their expectations of maps? Do we still rely on our old road atlas in the glove compartment or do we really compare the map on our satnav device to the latest and greatest available on Google Maps?