O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 Conference isn’t until the end of May, but Google just released two sweet new map-related features: GeoRSS support and MyMaps.

The GeoRSS support means that any application that can output it’s geocoding — as simple as <georss:point>45.256 -71.92</georss:point> — can now be linked to a live map with no more effort than it takes to paste the feed URL into Google Maps’ search box. Google holds this up as the exemplar, but I’m a fan of the cheese photo map here. (Here’s some notes about GeoRSS feed validation.)

And if that isn’t easy enough, the MyMaps feature that allows anybody to start marking up a map in their browser.

The really cool part, however, is Google is now indexing all this data and supposedly will be making them part of their local search. The result? Geo mashups have now gone from peculiar examples of the new technology to the loosely linked nuggets that made Google search and the web magical in the first place.

Expect more, way more.

(Also worth noting: with these announcements, the release of the 1.0 version of the Geo Mashup WordPress plugin, and Cliffy’s experience, I’m now formally throwing in the towel on my own bsuite_geocode plugin.) (Tip o’the hat to Ryan for telling me about the GeoRSS support.)

mashups, maps, mapping, loosely linked, local search, google, georss, geocoding, geo, mymaps

In yet more geolocation news, beermapping.com’s maps to breweries will make my travel planning easier, and my travels boozier.

Hey, it’s casual Friday, take off early and go find a new brewpub for lunch.

beermapping.com, brew maps, breweries, brewery, brewpub, casual friday, geolocation, mapping, maps

Wearing the badge “still beta,” Plazes, the free, network-based geolocation service, now sports a new coat of paint. Among the improvements is the Flash-based badge (above) and a much improved frontpage/dashboard that combines the map of known locations with the map of active users, formerly two separate screens.

On the downside, I sort of miss the old tracker. I love the icons on the new one, but there was a simplicity to the old list of recent plazes and favorite plazes that I liked. Also missing is the ability to display a time-range; instead, it simply displays the locations in date order. What I really want back is the ability to see, in one screen, all the places I’ve been in the past year, or month, or whatever (yeah, as Tim notes, it’s a bit exhibitionist, but…). Still, the new Plazes does add “hangouts,” which is sort of cool, you know, as a stalking aid.

The final downer is the useless of the “My World” map. It’s not that it shows I’ve only visited 1% of the world, it’s that it suggests I’ve visited all of the US — including Alaska and Hawaii. The map might be gratifying for the European developers, but I’d like more granularity.

Still, I continue to run the Plazer, and continue to look for new plazes to claim.

beta, geolocation, gis, location aware, mapping, plazes, still beta

I found the above image of a yFiles-generated site map at visualcomplexity.com.

We’ve seen a lot of internet diagrams, including this one from 1977, but what about mapping food? Or disaster situations? Or air routes?

It’s like data porn, and there’s more in the visualcomplexity gallery.

Here’s an interesting GeoPlace.com article on open source GIS tools, including GIS extensions to PosgreSQL and MySQL. Via The Map Room.

tags: geo world, geocode, geocoding, geographic information system, geography, geolocation, gis, gis development, gis guide, gis tools, map room, mapping, mysql, open source, open source gis, open source tools

I’m a big fan of the WP Geo plugin, but I want more.

My biggest complaint is that I want to insert coordinates using Google Maps or MultiMap URLs, rather than insert them in the modified story editor. So I wrote a bit of code that reads through the URLs in a post, finds the “maps.google” or “multimap.com” URLs, fishes the latitude and longitude out of them, and adds some geocoding tags to the body of the post.

Take a look at how it works with these posts in my archive…

You should see one or more blocks of links like the following (from my Osceola Weekend post):

geolocation: geo:lat=44.006336, geo:lon=-71.547260, geotagged, geolocation:44.006336,-71.547260 geobloggers

Go ahead and click the “geobloggers” link. I could have added these links using the old Geo plugin, but I still would have had to insert the coordinates separately. Actually, that brings up a good point: my code also inserts post metadata in the same format the Geo plugin uses, so I can take advantage of all the good functions it has, like the one that inserts the “<meta name=“ICBM” content=“44.006336, -71.547260” />” tag in the header of this post (caveat: I had to disable the add_action code in Geo that feeds the postmeta table, as it was conflicting my code).

I’m releasing this now, to start some public discussion, but please recognize that it’s a very early beta.

Download: bsuite_geocode.zip
Install: place unzipped “bsuite_geocode.php” file in your wp-content/plugins folder and activate it via the WP control panel. See the WordPress Codex for more detail.
Use: write posts as usual, adding links to Google Maps or MultiMap as appropriate. Links to those sites that have latitude and longitude components will be used to geocode the post.

Example of a working URL:

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=19.355507,-155.072365&spn=.191780,.318003&t=k&hl=en

Example of a URL that won’t work (note how there’s no “ll=”):

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=decker+canyon+rd,+malibu+california&spn=0.019857,0.039750&hl=en

I’ve got a lot of features and uses in mind, so consider this only a start. Please post bugs and suggestions in the comments.

Also, see these previous posts on geolocating the news or geolocating everything or just search the archives to understand why I’m so excited about things like this.

tags: beta, blog, blogmap, blogmaps, blog gis, geo, geocoding, geolocation, geotagging, gis, google maps, lat, latitude and longitude, lon, map, maps, mapping, metadata, multimap, plugin, plugins, wordpress, wordpress plugin, wp plugin

It would reasonably appear that here in the US, there’s only one map site: good ol’ Google. But until Google adds maps for countries other than the US, Canada, and UK, the rest of the world will have to look elsewhere. Enter the UK competitor: Multimap.com has been serving the world outside the bubble since 1996. From their self description:

Key features include street-level maps of the United Kingdom, Europe, and the US; road maps of the world; door-to-door travel directions; aerial photographs; and local information.

In short, it’s probably the best place to point any random set of coordinates. Example: my story about the Chernobyl tour should probably have included this street map of the region. (Yes, Google will now give me a low resolution satellite photo of the reactor, but photos and maps offer different value for different uses.)

My only complaint is that the service lacks the AJAX features that make Google Maps so great. But that might be changing. A post at The Map Room tells of a new feature for UK regions: a map overlay follows the mouse on aerial photos. Take a look at this example. Nice trick, eh?

tags: aerial photographs, chernobyl, google, map, map site, mapping, maps, maps of the world, multimap, online maps, rest of the world, road maps

Old news from Gizmodo and Wi-Fi Networking News (quoting WiFi NN):

Skyhook has assembled a database of information about 1.5 million access points across 25 major cities in the U.S. by driving every street in every city. Their software records multiple data points per sample for directionality. Fire up their software on a laptop, and it compares the Wi-Fi information it sees with what’s in the Skyhook database, popping out a latitude and longitude within 20 to 40 meters.

Also geolocation related: Monopoly Live: London style.

tags: access points, geolocation, gps, mapping, monopoly, skyhook, wifi

We don’t need to hack Google Maps anymore. Now that Google has released a public maps API, we can make more reliable map-dependent apps (which will now have better browser compatibility, thank you). Within a few minutes of signing up for a maps API key I had put together the following of the Nevada Test Site Tour.

Yeah, click the satellite button, scroll, zoom… It’s real.

The API is all JavaScript, but I use a bit of PHP to iterate through an array of points and generate the code that puts the lines and pins on the map.

The most frustrating development with the Google Maps API is that each developer key is limited to a certain hostname and directory. It’s sensitive to things like “www.maisonbisson.com” instead of “maisonbisson.com” or “maisonbisson.com/blog/post/10594” instead of “maisonbisson.com/blog/” . That’s why this is loading in an iframe.

Thanks to The Unofficial Google Weblog for the tip that the API was released yesterday. As a minor coincidence, Yahoo! also released their maps API this week. Damn.

tags: api, google maps, google maps api, map api, mapping, maps api, nevada test site, yahoo, yahoo maps, yahoo!, yahoo! maps

Geolocation by GPS my be the most straightforward approach, but we mustn’t forget the other ways to get lat/lon coordinates.

All current cell phones support aGPS positioning to comply with federal E-911 mandates, but not all phones make it easy for the user to get that information out of them. Still, some do and GPS-enabled moblogging is becoming common in Asia and Europe, and there’s at least a public proof of concept going in the US.

Then there’s ethernet/WiFi. Plazes is a kind of social networking application that allows users identify their location based on their network fingerprint. Using the assumption that networks are typically stationary, Plazes then associates lat/lon coordinates to that network based on information submitted by user who ‘discovered’ the network. Plazes’ real trick, however, is to show me who else is online nearby. Problem is, I live and work in New Hampshire where I appear to be the only user online north of Virginia.

But the Plazes folks didn’t invent the concept of using network information to identify location. If I wasn’t so lazy I’d find the story I read a couple of years ago that mentioned it, but this June 2004 article in New Scientist tells the story of one such effort: PlaceLab (extra coverage at Engadget and ExtremeGPS). A Google search turned up Herecast and now Engadget is reporting on AllwaysOnGPS, a replacement GPS driver (for Windows PCs) that mixes GPS and WiFi derived location data to provide the most accurate info despite changing coverage.

Finally, one of my favorite solutions is to use Earthcomber in manual mode. The Palm application allows you to scroll around a map and mark locations as though they were waypoints in a GPS. And though that’s neat, it’s the mapping features that make it a winner. It’s far better than those lousy tourist guides in cities. I used to go to AAA for maps and guides in preparation for a trip, but now I check Earthcomber for area maps and updates.

Technorati Tags: agps, cell phone, coordinates, geolocation, gps, lattitude, longitude, map, mapping, maps, moblogging, network, networking application, palm, picture phone, social networking, wifi