Platial News and Neogeography

Google Book Mapping

Google Book Search has begun a project to automatically map locations from books. There was a post about it on the Booksearch Blog.

Here are a few I found mapped:
On the Road by Kerouak
A Moveable Feast by Hemingway
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
The Complete Works of Shakespeare

This is an incredibly cool addition to Google books. It is a little disappointing to see that places are mostly mapped down to the city level only, but then you realize that this is work done by robots and for robots, they're doing a pretty amazing job! The map of A Moveable Feast, with cities marked and page numbers listed for mentions of the cities, will be a great reference for someone who has too much time on his hands and a pretty good knowledge of Paris and London to pinpoint the scenes a little more precisely. In general the maps are wanting of a little human touch. I noticed a comical error on the Shakespeare map, where all mentions of the character Orlando from As You Like It are mapped in Florida. Memphis is unfortunately mapped in Tennessee, rather than Egypt and Syracuse is plotted in New York instead of Italy. Still, not bad!

unRussianized Maps

An English property reporting company called Landmark is selling reprints of old Soviet Maps. Here is part of a blurb from the site:

For over 50 years, before, during and after the Cold War, the Soviet military undertook the most comprehensive global survey ever attempted and created detailed, accurate maps of practically every country in the world.

I do have to say though, at least from the one sample pdf they offer, these maps lost their mystique once all the details were translated and redrawn in English.

All fixed

T'was just a minor thing, all fixed.

Can't Log In... Oh No!

I am very sorry, Platial users. We were having a little glitch with our log in just now. If you got logged out in the middle of doing something you have our sincere apologies.

Lucky Pennies

A cool new Map about finding lucky pennies!

"Found a Lucky Penny? Add it to the map. Map of all the lucky pennies, and maybe some pattern might emerge."

It's an open community map, so go add something to it.

I Have a Crush on WordPress Users

Over the past week or so, I've had some really fantastic encounters with our new WordPress MapKit users. Generally so far I've found the WordPress community to be very warm and helpful and I'm enjoying hearing from people and getting their suggestions. One blogger, who had decided not to use the widget, still spent about 40 minutes chatting with me about how we could improve our tool. That kind of friendly advice is invaluable and I can't express enough how much I appreciate it. Another blogger spent a good half an hour or more on IM with me testing out our new MapKit forms just before our launch yesterday. Getting the fresh perspective of a person who hasn't been living and breathing Platial for past year was great.

I want to express a hearty welcome to all of the smart, friendly, helpful, and fascinating new Platial members from WordPress. I really look forward to getting to know you better.

Here's a little list of some of the new blogs using MapKit. I know I'm missing a lot, so if you are a WordPress blogger using our widget, give a shout out in the comments.

My Weird Wired World is a tech and personal blog from India.
Loser With Socks is a funny sports blog. They're experimenting with what to put on their MapKit. Anybody have a brilliant idea for them?
Inside the World is an italian tech blog.
Florent is using MapKit to show his home town of Toulouse.
Raumkonzentration is a german blog.
The International Space University blog has a MapKit showing where all its masters students come from--very cool!The guy who made this exclamation in his blog post has a place in my heart: "Geo geo geo, with bio, permafrost, meterorite and space!!!!" Right on!
Next Generation Space Explorer is mapping its world.
David's dingen
Journazza is about media and communication. They're using MapKit as a guestbook.

Platial Tip: Publishing Other People's Cool Maps

While you can only publish your own map as a MapKit, you can put a simple version of any map on Platial on your own site. There are two simple versions. One is based on Google maps and the other is based on Yahoo Maps.

The Google map version is an iframe and can be used on most blogs and other websites. The Yahoo version is flash, and can be used on blogs and most other websites, but also on MySpace and many forums.

These maps show up to 40 markers and the titles of the posts from the map. They link back to the map on Platial. They make especially nice additions to blog posts. Also, when something gets added to the map on Platial, the markers automatically show up on the map on your own site.

It would be fun to use these maps for little "map of the week" features on blog posts or side bars. They are really easy to install and you can switch them out for new ones if you need a change. There are plenty of great maps out there to choose from!

Here are some maps that could be fun to have on a blog.

The Fallen Fruit Map by Austin is a great one to use to usher in the Spring. It shows places in Los Angeles where fruit trees hang their boughs over the public space. Austin is an LA-based artist. Fallen Fruit also has a great website. They have a nice Biblical quote on their site: "When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger." (Leviticus 19:9-10) This map would make a great blog post, but it would also be a fun thing to slip into your side bar for a couple weeks.

The Shark Attack Map by Bianca200 is updated pretty frequently. This map on your site would give you a picture of the 40 most recent shark attacks worldwide. The full map contains 70 accounts of shark attacks, with links to news stories. This is the map desciption: "This map shows locations of shark attacks. I have added only attacks from the year 2000 until the present. The map is incomplete. It contains all unprovoked fatal attacks since 2000 and some non-fatal attacks. Please add any shark attacks you know about. You are far more likely to die as a result of driving to the beach than you are of being bitten by a shark while swimming. More people are killed by bees than by sharks each year. Elephants kill way more people than either bees or sharks. Still, sharks are scarier."

Famous Film Locations by Barnaclebarnes is a great map to use because you can see all of the spots on the map on your blog and the information you want is mainly in the titles anyhow. The information for this map came from Mark Allen's blog.

Bronx Rap--Where You At?

Bronx Rap just installed a Mapkit so that their readers can leave their marks. The blog covers hip hop of all types. They say of themselves, "We created this site to give it to you raw. The essence of real Hip-Hop must not be mis-understood. The pioneers of hip-hop must not be forgotten. It was an era that we as a people designed a language that would be our extension of expression and communication. The D.N.A of hip-hop was born in the Bronx N.Y, U.S.A Planet Earth. So you shall never get it confused. Bronx Rap has always been a controlling figure in Urban Media but we love all ill styles of Hip-Hop."

If you love hip hop, check out the blog and leave your mark on their map.

Happy Valentine's Day

Love is a big topic on Platial. From the start, people have been using the site to chart their romantic lives, their disappointments, their date spots, and their weddings. Here are a few maps for Valentine's Day, even if I am a little late!

One of our first popular maps on Platial was Hopeless Romantic. My love for this map and its tales of hopeless moments in courting is undying.

Doug Gillett blogged today about his great Dump Spots map.

Kissing makes for fantastic mapping projects. Where I had My First Kiss is using their own homegrown map, while the more Canada-centric Cananda.com First Kiss Map is using MapKit. Find a good spot for a kiss on the Stargazing Map or somewhere in Romantic irvine.

Wedding Maps have been pretty big, too. This map is looking for Marriage Proposal Stories. Read about how Platial co-founder Jake Olsen convinced his wife to marry him on the map My Amazing Marriage Proposal and get a glimpse into the wedding of our other co-founders Jason Wilson and Di-Ann Eisnor last August on Legal Binding of Jason and Di-Ann.

There are so many great maps out there that I am sure to be missing a few good ones!

A Few New MapKits

I ran across a few MapKits today on blogs.

Multiplicity. The mapKit will be used to track a big trip, including Sao Paulo for Mardi Gras!

Messing About in Sailboats (nice Wind in the Willows reference) has a MapKit of Great Places to Sail.

Lunken's Blogg. Map of Intressanta Platser.

Voga is using mapKit to show its store location.

QPlog is using MapKit as a guest book.