Google Maps Mash-Ups All The Rage On The World Wide Web

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Google Maps Mash-Ups All The Rage On The World Wide Web
08/29/2005 04:08 PM
By: NY1 News

A relatively new phenomenon is sweeping Internet websites, and you may've already experienced it yourself. In the following report, NY1 Tech Beat Reporter Adam Balkin has more on "mash-ups."

From finding the cheapest gas, to finding a new job near your home, to locating convicted sex offenders in your neighborhood, there's a relatively new tool that's popping up on more and more websites. It's called a Google Maps Mash-Up, which is a Google map mashed-up or mixed in with whatever a website's developer chooses to mix in.

“Google about a month ago released their API, which is application programming interface, to make it so everybody can use it now,” says Dan Evans of ExtremeTech magazine. “So they're easy, you get in there and make your changes in the code, and that's why it's so easily malleable to all these different functions. It localizes and personalizes a lot more than just an address.”

SliceNY.com, for example, helps you find some of the city's top pizza joints using a Google maps mash-up.

“Google Maps had several things going for it before they released the API, which lets you hack Google Maps to your desire,” says Adam Kuban of SliceNY.com. “First is that you can scroll and zoom within the page without having to reload the page, and so it's faster. Then it has that satellite technology that lets you zoom into a satellite image. I think there are other maps that let you hack them, but Google lets you embed it within your page.”

One brand new mash-up is designed to allow you to easily make your own mash-up even if you know absolutely nothing about programming. An online photo sharing site called SmugMug allows you to organize all your digital photos based on exactly where you took them.

“It's called SmugMaps, and it allows you to combine, or mash up, as we're saying, the notion of geography and photography,” says Andy Williams of SmugMug.com. “So wherever I am if I'm taking a trip and I want to share the photographs of that trip, say on a cross-country ride of the United States, and I share my photos with you, by simply clicking on the photograph after I viewed it you can see where on the map this place was that I'm referring to. You use a simple lookup function, if you know the address and the zip code, for example, and it'll automatically be placed on the map in the proper position.”

The site also lets you snap photos with your phone and instantly transmit them, based on your location, to your online album.

Every day there are seemingly dozens of new, interesting and weird Google Maps Mash-Ups created.

- Adam Balkin

Featured Google Maps Mash-Ups

googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

maps.smugmug.com/

www.ahding.com/cheapgas/

flhurricane.com/googlemap.php?2005s12

hotmaps.frozenbear.com/