Web designers focus on mapping other sites

Published in: eLaw & Management
Date: Wed 31 August 2005
Category: Internet
Issue No: 1096

MapSexOffenders.com, which combines 37 state sex-offender databases with Google mapping software, is now drawing up to 100 000 visitors a day. AustralianIT reports that hundreds of ‘mashups’ or ‘map hacks’ based on mapping web sites run by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have sprung up, displaying everything from potholes in New York to taco trucks in Seattle and crime patterns in Chicago. Mashups didn't take off until June, when Yahoo and Google allowed outside developers to use their mapping software. Microsoft followed a month later. ‘We wanted to encourage that type of innovation because we know a lot of the great things we can do with maps, but we certainly can't think of all of them,’ said Google Maps product manager Bret Taylor. Web designers have jumped at the chance, building sites that map US soldiers killed in Iraq, job openings and the travels of the rock band Wilco.Full report on the AustralianIT site