ProgrammableWeb: Mapping APIs and Mashups

PackageTrack

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:35:04 -0700

PackageTrack provides twitter notification and google mapping for USPS, UPS, and FedEx packages.

Date Updated: 2009-07-08
Tags: mapping, microblogging, shipping

Gov 2.0, D.C. Style

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:05:15 -0700

Last week saw a wave of developments in the opening of government data, coinciding with the Personal Democracy Forum in New York. The new CIO of the country, Vivek Kundra, announced a site called the IT Dashboard that shows government spending on IT contracts for many federal agencies, and includes detail on the progress and performance of those contracts, as described here. This follows the launch of data.gov in May, the first step in a new direction for federal government transparency. But just as interesting as the top-down federal data exposure is the innovation coming bottom-up from city programs that tackle practical municipal problems, and use open data, APIs, and public involvement. Although many cities have experimented with simple mapping mashups and other forms of tech outreach, it is in Washington, D.C., where Kundra was formerly CTO, where you find the most comprehensive use of 2.0 technologies. The initial Apps for Democracy contest last fall, a partnership of the D.C. Office of the CTO and iStrategyLabs, resulted in 47 applications that represent an estimated $2.3M worth of software development, with a cost in prizes of a modest $50K. It turns out that when you incent people to solve problems that they already exercised about - the condition of their city and surroundings - good things can result. The contest was based on a publicly available comprehensive data catalog, and featured apps for transportation, biking, crime reports, parking, and real-time alerts. The Office of the CTO recently introduced a read/write RESTful API for its 311 system, the first such API in the country (our 311 API profile). This opens up the possibility of innovative two-way apps for reporting civic problems, some of which are finalists in the current 2009 version of the Apps for Democracy contest. The API includes libraries in PHP, Ruby, and Python, and has spurred an effort to create standards for 311 data formats.

iStrategyLabs CEO Peter Corbett credits the talent and the nimbleness of the tech people working for the D.C government, and the ease of incorporating outside tools such as wikis and voting modules. His broader vision is a framework for participation that starts with citizens helping to crowdsource what civic problems need attention, and ends with appropriate government and private company support. See the full video of his explanation about the framework and the contest here. During the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, mayor Mike Bloomberg announced a similar contest for hacking data sets of his city called the Big Apps contest, with cash prizes to be announced. The winner also gets dinner with the billionaire mayor, possibly at Le Cirque instead of Shake Shack. If other cities follow suit, with modest sums of money and civic bragging rights as the spur, we may see the evolution of on-the-ground participation that improves urban life - one filled pothole and one fixed parking meter at a time.

Mountains Mounts

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:35:05 -0700

MountainsMounts.com provides over 100,000 mountain peaks geo information and shows the mountains on a map.

Date Updated: 2009-07-06
Tags: climbing, geo, mapping, mountain, reference, sports

How to Add Geo Data to Your Blog Posts

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:20:58 -0700

Planning to blog your vacation? Why not geocode your blog posts, so that you can let visitors know where you are? That's the idea behind a new tool for WordPress that uses Placemaker (our Placemaker API profile) to find a location from a body of text. When we covered Placemaker's launch we mentioned its usefulness for geocoding others' blog posts, as well as newspaper articles. With the WordPress plugin, you can do the work ahead of time, but without trying to determine your exact coordinates. The tool, announced on the Yahoo Developer blog uses a Firefox Greasemonkey script to embed a "geo this" button within the WordPress admin screen. Click the button and it makes a YQL call to Placemaker, sending along the contents of your post. Upon returning, it embeds the results in the Geo microformat, so the location can be recognized. If you're looking for something a little more hands on, be sure to check out GeoPress, a plugin for WordPress that uses Skyhook's WiFi data to attempt to determine your current location. This blogging tool along with the GeoMaker app we highlighted last week show the increasingly diverse ways that geo APIs like Placemaker can be put to use.

Yahoo Geolocation Button for Wordpress

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:35:09 -0700

A Firefox Greasemonkey script to embed a "geo this" button within the WordPress admin screen. Click the button and it makes a YQL call to Placemaker, sending along the contents of your post. It embeds the results in the Geo microformat.

Date Updated: 2009-07-05
Tags: blogging, blogs, greasmonkey, mapping

5000 Webcams

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:35:07 -0700

1700 US cams and 5000 worldwide. Found unprotected cams all with live thumbnails.

Date Updated: 2009-07-05
Tags: live, mapping, video, webcam

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Travel Advice Map

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:35:04 -0700

Answering the question: Where is it safe to travel in the world? This is a mashup of the UK's F&CO travel advice data, which they provide as a list on their website, and Google Maps.

Date Updated: 2009-07-05
Tags: government, holiday, mapping, travel

Conner Outdoors

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:35:02 -0700

Find hunting guides and outfitters by location or game.

Date Updated: 2009-07-05
Tags: hunting, mapping, sports, video

LBS Search Tool

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:35:02 -0700

Do location-aware searches. Gets your location either by Gears Geolocation protocol for location by IP or WiMAX Open Source Connection Manager from Clearwire. Both Yahoo and Google mapped results. A beta Adobe AIR desktop app.

Date Updated: 2009-07-04
Tags: Flex, local, mapping, wimax

Yahoo's Placemaker Yields the GeoMaker Project

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:05:09 -0700

You may remember our earlier post on Yahoo Placemaker, a new “geo-enrichment” platform that includes an API (our Placemaker API Profile) that can be used to make applications and data sets location-aware by determining the “whereness” of unstructured content. Now, Yahoo developer evangelist Christian Heilmann has released GeoMaker, a new app that makes it dead simple to use the Placemaker API with any web site. Christian developed GeoMaker as a side project using PHP and several Yahoo developer libraries (including YQL and YUI). Although in its initial stages, GeoMaker currently allows users to input text or a URL (e.g., http://icant.co.uk/geomaker/index.php?url=http://news.yahoo.com) to be ge-enriched. Subsequently, a Yahoo Map is output, including code for copying pasting the map on to your favorite site or blog. As a bonus, GeoMaker also outputs the geo-enriched location data in Geo Microformats. Christian has also put together a short video (below) that provides a good overview of GeoMaker on the Yahoo Developer Network Blog. GeoMaker serves as a great example of how a viable and functional web app can be rapidly and easily developed by leveraging existing developer libraries and APIs. Christian is currently asking for feedback, which he intends to use to refine and improve GeoMaker, prior to making it available as an open-source project on GitHub (our GitHub API Profile). Nicely done, Christian!

Explore Seven Years of NYC Murders

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:18:09 -0700

A murder in New York is twice as likely to occur at night. And thankfully, we've just finished June, which statistically has slightly more murders than other months. These bits of data come from the New York Times visualization of more than 3,000 homicides over seven years. The crimes are plotted on a map with custom tiles, with tiny markers denoting individual crimes. Rollover a marker and you see the details, such as the race and age of those involved.

You can drill down to see the murders by certain categories. In these circumstances the markers change colors based on the meta-data. For example, the screenshot shows weapons used: green for firearm, orange for knife and purple for other. The Times has found a way to visualize what would otherwise be a spreadsheet of data in a meaningful way. What does a newspaper get out of this? For one, news stories, at least one so far. And they're asking for tips from readers exploring the map. This type of interactive visualization of crime data is a popular mashup theme and there are now 44 crime mashups in our directory. While it helps with reporting, the Times' site even stands out as a mashup. It is subtle, showing mounds of data in a way that is not overwhelming. It's certainly an improvement over their earlier try three years ago. In case it doesn't stand on its own, the Google Maps team likes it. High praise for a mashup that many would benefit from emulating.

Tutrme

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:35:05 -0700

Tutrme.com is a free global tutor database helping connect local tutors with students. The graphical map-based directory interface helps students to not have to hunt through loads of useless information in their search for a local, qualified tutor.

Date Updated: 2009-07-02
Tags: education, mapping, tutor

Ericsson Mobile Maps

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:34:55 -0700

Mobile mapping service

Date Updated: 2009-07-01
Tags: mapping, mobile

Ericsson Web Maps

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:25:18 -0700

Online mapping service

Date Updated: 2009-07-01
Tags: mapping

Programmer Japan Jobs

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:35:05 -0700

Programmer and system engineer jobs in Japan.

Date Updated: 2009-06-30
Tags: japan, jobs, mapping

Reachoo Video Classifieds

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:35:13 -0700

Video classifieds site that connects the local community and assists sellers and buyers in making transactions via videos.

Date Updated: 2009-06-29
Tags: classifieds, mapping, shopping, video

Ennovation HotSpot

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:35:03 -0700

Chinese-oriented WiFi hotspot web database, which is available from mobile XHTML as well. Content in Chinese. The database is increasing and an API for mobile and web is planned.

Date Updated: 2009-06-28
Tags: chinese, mapping, search, wifi

Bookmaplet

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:35:01 -0700

The bookmaplet is a bookmarklet that can be used by highlighting a street address on a site and then clicking it. The location of the street address will be shown in a small overlay in the top-right corner.

Date Updated: 2009-06-27
Tags: bookmarks, mapping

MuzkMesh

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:35:02 -0700

A music mashup of Lastfm, LyricWiki and Google Maps.

Date Updated: 2009-06-26
Tags: concerts, lyrics, mapping, music

TravelMapia

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:35:08 -0700

World Travel Guide featuring Video and pictures of, hotels, resorts and restaurants on an interactive Google Map.

Date Updated: 2009-06-25
Tags: mapping, travel, video