One of the most satisfying tasks you can accomplish using Platial is publishing a map on your own website. With our new Map Styler tools, the maps that you can publish have become particularly powerful and fun. To help you get started using these maps, I wrote up a step-by-step how-to on Instructibles and I made a video and posted it on Youtube.
Even though we don't have a designated tag field for maps, you can increase the chances that your map will come up in search by adding a string of relevant tags to the end of your map description.
I usually hit return a couple times, throw in some dashes or asterisks, then lay on the tag words at the end of my description. It really helps out the search robots.
Come one come all, join in the fun of bizarre community television.
Here is just a taste:
Everyone is encouraged to add embedded video to this open map, so get digging into the archives or head over to the local cable access station for some content.
Welcome to the second installment of our featured explorers. This tour of Platial was written by Designingmama, who is also involved in a couple of interesting projects like Mom to Mom and the blog On Raising a Mommy.
These tours of Platial were written some time ago for an abandoned editorial feature. I'm publishing them in the blog because I love what the people who chose to submit tours wrote. I hope everyone else will enjoy them, too.
"I believe that cities are a TEXTual physical and mental construct. Etymologically, TEXT comes from the Latin verb “texere” which means “to weave.” As such, cities are woven, each thread creating a TEXTure unique to each city. Maps are a means of following or unraveling a particular thread; a means of rendering the city text legible, and a means of leaving and unearthing (in)visible marks on the city. Each time a map of a city is created (and each city can have thousands and thousands of maps), a story is written and told, and a thread is both unraveled and added onto the city weave."
The Londonist has started a map of Places from Dr Who, called Stalking Doctor Who.
Americans have had a lot less exposure to this great show than Brits, but it still has a huge following here. I used to watch Dr. Who (fifth doctor) on PBS late nights when I was a kid. I'm excited to see this map grow as the fan community discovers it.
Some of my favorite Dr. Who sites:
Kasterborous
Kopic's Dr. Who News Service
Outpost Gallifrey
The tardis (flashy)
Who Central
I'm also fond of the Live Journal Dr. Who quotes site, Dr. Who Wisdom. I cannot resist loving the page layout designed to reference the famous scarf. Brilliant!
Platial can be extremely useful for answering questions like, "Where can I walk to and do yoga?" or "Where can I get a manicure in Somerville?" Using search results is an easy way to whip up a useful map. Let's use the manicure example.
First I create the map I want to fill by clicking on the create a map button.
I give it a nice title and description.
Next I zoom in to Somerville, MA so that I can use the nifty search in span feature. Leave the where box blank in the blue search bar, and in the what box put whatever it is you are looking for.
Now click on the first sidecard of the first Place you want to add to the map.
Details about that Place will appear under the map. Click on "Add to a map."
Now click on the title of the map you just finished creating.
Click "ok" and repeat the process for all of the Places from your search which you want to add to the map. In under ten minutes you have a new map.
iPod these 14 audio tracks, print out the map, hop on your bike, and prepare yourself for a sonic experience you won't soon forget.
From Bikebin's map description:
The Bike Bin Project is a bicycle tour of Seattle from the constrained perspectives of several of Seattle's most iconoclastic and brilliant composers. Each composer has assigned an exact time and exact place for their piece to be experienced. The listener downloads, ventures to these specific places and times, and listens.
Recently, Burritoeater has been working on what looks like a pretty exhaustive map of Taquerias in the Bay area called Taquerias of San Francisco. A burrito rates very highly among delicious foods you can eat without actually leaving your computer and are pretty popular around the Platial office, so we noticed this map right away.
The map compliments what is possibly the best taqueria blog ever: Burrito Eater. This person takes his burritos seriously, but not himself. Taquerias are rated on an extremely sophisticated (no kidding!) one to ten mustache scale and he calls his newsletter the "Intestinal Apocolypse Monthly." He gives a short, global review of each Place and then follows up with in-depth reviews of different dishes. I particularly like the "burstage abetement" rating. The map doesn't give addresses, but if you click the website links you'll find them on his site. The website is chock full of all kinds of good reading and reviews.
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