It's all just data?


A Google Map mash-up that gives us photographs of a particular site is pretty much as interesting as the photographs. Poor photos, no interest. The same would be true of map-coordinated podcasts, or for that matter, text files, about particular spots on the map. I can understand the possible attraction of a "my google-mapped life" site, where somebody posts his or her autobiography not in chronological order but as spots on a map. We would click on a particular spot on the map and learn that it was here that she lost her first tooth, here that he had his first auto accident. It sounds cute, but would have to be done very well in order to actually make it worth reading, and convince us that we've had a different experience than we might have through encountering the same information simply via text and photos on a standard web page. To a certain extent it even has a bit of a retro feel to it.

On the other hand, mash-ups of maps with databases can truly give us new perspectives. There really is a chance that they might be able to create a different sort of interface, a different approach to data. What's still lacking is some sort of aggregator - an ur-map that lists for us the various sorts of information available to us from a particular map. At the moment, they're individually accessible - we log out of one and into a new one. What we need is to be able to change views with one click.



Go to: Taking to the streets