Fun with Google Maps

Dwight blogs on some interesting uses of Google's new MyMaps feature. It's one of the niftier things that Google has added to their mapping function ever since they released it on API. In experimenting with both Google's new MyMaps and their previously existing API, here's two results looking for a little input/feedback:

» HD137 in Red/Blue
The shading is reflective of the percentage won by either Scott Hochberg or Sylvia Spivey. Originally, I'd set the shading to match the winning percentage. But the shading was a bit too opaque and made it difficult to read the map. So I bumped it down to 50% of the winning percentage. Only problem is that it mutes the differences in margin rather substantially. So it's difficult to identify areas of strength more readily.

» Early Voting locations on MelissaNoriega.com
My first foray into the world of Google Maps API. The coding is a bit problematic, but since there's a pretty good field of how-to resources out there now, it's a bit easier to learn. I'd wanted to do something like this back in 2006, but didn't have the time to dive into the programming of it. Again ... much easier to pick up nowadays.

There's two nice features incorporated into this one: the directions - which you can't run through the API, but you can send a location over to Google Maps; and the enlarged info box option. The latter lets you put practically anything into the map ... even RSS feeds. It's essentially reading from an HTML page. There's nothing that says you couldn't, for instance, map every sporting event at it's location and give live scores via RSS feeds. Could come in handy for High School football - or any other sport of interest.

In experimenting with some map ideas for polling locations on E-day, there's a bit of an issue with there being hundreds of pushpins to deal with. Visually, there's got to be a way to break it into smaller chunks or go to the map zoomed in for more detail. But that's the next experiment.

I'm interested in hearing/reading/seeing any feedback on ways to incorporate the maps for political/informational use. I think a lot of what we get out of this right now is rather limited in terms of anything new that it brings to politics or current events. The folks at ChicagoCrime.org have been at the forefront of using the API for informational purposes. But at the end of the day, any use of the maps should be such that it makes things easier for people to do something other than look up the information. We're not there yet, I don't think. But it'll take a good deal of experiments before we arrive at that point.