One of my new favorite maps is of the locations of people who loved the show Knight Rider enough to make custom replica K.I.T.T. cars and keep them around for more than 20 years. This is dedication. These are true fans. It's hard to imagine anything from today's world being nostalgically venerated like this in the year 2032.
One of the most popular kinds of maps when Platial first launched was what we called the "Autobiogeography," maps with which people simply told the stories of their lives. Genealogy mapping, in some way, is a branch of Autobiogeography. People paint pictures of who they are by showing who their ancestors are. What stock they come from, and on the best of genealogy maps, telling their ancestors stories.
Recording family stories has become more and more popular over the past decades, as it became easier and easier to record the stories on one's own and as anthropologists began to grasp the importance of documenting one's own personal folklore. The Smithsonian Institute has a fantastically helpful guide to recording oral histories, which has done a lot to promote the collection and preservation of these stories. On a more informal scale, Storycorps has been traveling across the US since 2003 with a mobile recording booth, helping people get together to record their personal stories. They don't restrict themselves only to family stories, but more often than not the interviews they collect are between two people reaching across the generational gap who are connected if not by genealogy directly, by some more metaphorical form of kinship.
Mountainmaverick said, about making his family map called Birthplaces, "Both my favorite and hardest part of making that map was talking to my parents and learning the geographical distribution of my family." I myself did an oral history project with my grandmother years ago, and I was blown away by the amount of things I didn't know about my family's past. Digging into one's genealogy connects you to the past in a way nothing else can.
Here are few genealogy maps you can find on Platial to help inspire you to think about your own. It would be especially exciting to embed audio recordings from an oral history project onto a map.
One nice map is Moeller Family History by Tingleyx5. He shows the evolution of his Illinois family by marking where his ancestors worked, lived and went to school. This map tells a story.
The map Family History by Badwolf shows the origins of the various branches of his family tree in Europe.
Gen6tex's Family History map shows the traces of his ancestors across North America.
Immigration to America is not a personal family history map, but a map where anyone can show where their ancestors came from and where they first settled.
I can't believe I forgot my second-favorite holiday! There are a lot of theories about how April 1st came to be celebrated as the day of pranks. April 1st used to be the first day of the year, before the change to the Gregorian calendar in the 16th Century. The people who refused to change over and celebrated the beginning of the new year on April 1st were April fools. Of course, that doesn't explain why people play tricks on April 1st. Also, the day was celebrated in many countries which didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until later.
April 1st used to be called "All Fools Day," which brings to mind All Saints Day. On one we remember our morality and the virtues of our dead and on the other we celebrate our living foibles and both our gullibility and ingenuity. To mark the occasion, if belatedly, I'm bringing out this chestnut again: The Famous Hoaxes Map by Bianca200. Enjoy!
Steev Hise is in the process of creating a new, independent journalism project to document life and reality along the U.S. / Mexico border. It's called News On The Line. As he travels along the border, he is making video, taking pictures, writing blog posts, and mapping his route.
The description of his map reads:
"As the U.S. presidency passes from George Bush to Barrack Obama, I'm travelling the southern border from west to east, visiting communities that are 'hot spots' in the struggle over recent border militarization. I'll get footage and stills of wall construction and local events and talk to people about their hopes for a more just borderlands."
Steev is a filmmaker, an artist, an activist, and a journalist. He has been working on subjects related to the borderlands since 2004. In 2006 he released a documentary about an epidemic of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez, called On the Edge: The Femicide in Ciudad Juarez. You can watch it for free, serialized into 10 podcasts, on Panleft, or order the dvd from
Illegal Art. You can also see a short version of Wild Versus Wall, the video Steev Hise made for the Sierra Club, about the environmental impact of the border wall.
For more information about the border area and the proposed wall, there is a very good National Geographic article on the subject.
Photo by Steev Hise.
A few years ago, I had a co-worker who was (and is) a knitting evangalist. She taught me, and anyone else she could corner, how to knit and purl. Since then, I have rarely been seen without some kind of project in my handbag. The knitting and crochet revolution that's been happening in the US and elsewhere over the past decade has made it possible for lots of wonderful little yarn shops to spring up, and more wonderful shops to survive.
What better way to feel frugal than to make your own clothes? We have a map of Favorite Local Yarn Shops on Platial, which people have been adding to for about a year now. It has almost 300 places on it, all over the world. I've had it on my own knitting blog for a long time, and this week it was picked up by Wendyknits, whose famous basic sock patterns taught me how to make socks.
If you live in the Bay area, there's also a special map of Bay-Area-Only LYS. If you live in Portland, OR, you are in luck not only because of the quantity and quality of your yarn shops, but also because there are two maps specially for you. One of PDX Local Yarn Stores and another showing where to go to get in on a Stitch and Bitch
I also am very fond of these maps of knitting graffiti from Knitta Please and Knitsea
At 8.30pm on March 28, people around the world will turn their lights off for one hour – Earth Hour. Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia with 2.2 million homes and businesses turning their lights off for one hour. Only a year later and this event had become a global sustainability movement with up to 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square, all stood in darkness, as symbols of hope for a cause that grows more urgent by the hour.
To show your support for the cause, add yourself to the guest map on Earth Hour's Myspace page. To find out what Earth-Hour initiatives are going on in your area, look for your city on the map on their main site.
You can also help spread the word by putting the Earth Hour Map on your own blog or website. Just grab the html code from the box in the top corner of the map and put it on your blog or website.
We at Platial are proud to see one of our maps in the service of this initiative.
Working in S.E. today, ran Nearby on my iPhone, and came across this older but totally stunning post by kbeadle!
So amazing, this is really the kind of stuff I love to see on the site and the app.
http://platial.com/post/Shell-station-where-they-pumped-gas-INSIDE-my-car/931571
Just today I noticed that PetBrags had published their adorable map on Widgetbox. How cool! Way to go, PetBrags!
We have a bunch of cool maps up on Widgetbox, including another one put their by its owner, Great Places to Sail by Turinas. That map and the Shark Attack map by Bianca2000 are in the top 10 most popular map apps on Widgetbox.
One of the cool things about Widgetbox (and there are many, many cool things!) is that they have an app accelerator to help you get your maps on Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, and soon also Myspace. If you'd like to get your own map into the Widgetbox gallery and turn it into a facebook app, watch this video I made:
Today, Platial launched a new Top 10 Fan Maps page. Anyone can grab the code and add an artist widget to their Facebook profile, other site or blog. Show your love! (Or start a new fan map.)
We'll be listing new fan map widgets soon but here are the Top 10. Feel free to point out your favorite Platial or Frappr fan maps if we've missed them.
This morning I discovered a new project on Platial that I really love: Teen Confessions Through the Ages. The idea is wonderful. Teenagers and Adults have a tough time talking face to face, but they have a lot of things to talk about. This map blog lets teens and grown ups tell stories about themselves for mutual benefit without the awkwardness of having to be face to face.
The maps are new and ripe for stories. Tell the world about your practical jokes, embarassing teenage crushes, and favorite hangouts.
From the blog:
"Kids and adults are nosy about each other — especially when it comes to the teenage years.Teenagers can’t always count on the adults in their lives giving candid answers when they ask, “So, when you were my age, what was it like for you?”
Adults often get blank stares when they ask kids, point blank, “What’s up,” or disinterest when they try to serve up stories about when they were teenagers.
Here at this blog, kids can post their teenage experiences and adults can recall theirs for a funny, poignant or informative read and without the pressure or awkwardness that often comes with in-person, one-on-one exchanges of this sort."
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