I’ve been paying a lot more attention to database-driven maps and G-Map mash-ups in the past few weeks, and looking at how newspaper.coms can best use them to relay information.
The Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union-Tribune last week both put heavy resources into updating fire maps to help residents track the wildfires in Southern California. The quick changes in the direction and status of fires made keeping these maps truly up to date, despite the newspapers’ best efforts. Despite this difficultly, the maps were very useful to thousands of people.
Yesterday, the Online Journalism Review released an article on the maps on the Union-Tribune, L.A. Times and KPBS Web sites, noting those maps accounted for more than 3.5 million page views last week, according to Google Maps Product Manager Jessica Lee.
In an e-mail to OJR, Phil Malavenda, online operations/production manager for SignOnSanDiego.com, wrote, “It doesn't take much technical expertise to create a map through Google's site and share it. You just have to put points/areas on the map and make it public. It did take some programming expertise to host the map on our site like we did. “
The OJR article also includes a list of some interesting Google Map mash-ups from the past.
There are a few we know about that are not on that list from OJR, including a database-driven map of bicycle accidents from the Oregonian released this month. Portland is one of the heaviest bike-commuting metro areas, and collisions between bicycles and cars – accidental or intentional – are sadly common. The map project came after two bicyclists died in October there. The purpose of the map from the Oregonian is very different from that of the fire maps, but it’s still extremely useful for that community. And, considering my husband bike-commutes here in D.C. and is originally from Portland, it was interesting for us, too.
A few others not on the OJR list worth checking out: