Maps

Media organizations and individuals alike are using online mapping software for news purposes.

Walkshed Philadelphia

www.walkshed.org

Avencia in Philadelphia, PA

Walkshed is a prototype web application that calculates and maps walkability for the city of Philadelphia. The site was developed to demonstrate that it is possible to more accurately calculate and map walkability and features: Actual Walking Distance - walkability score is based on the actual walking distance to each amenity, accounting for street connectivity and barriers such as highways and rivers. Decision Factors - including transit access, crime density, car share locations, grocery stores, farmer’s markets, and more. It also is possible to choose different priorities allowing person to person customization.

Trends Map: Real-Time Local Twitter Trends

http://trendsmap.com/

Stateless Systems

Trendsmap.com is a real-time mapping of Twitter trends across the world. See what the global, collective mass of humanity are discussing right now. Whether viewing the world or just your neighborhood the Trendsmap uses Twitter’s Open data stream, GoogleMaps, and the website www.WhatTheTrend.com to superimpose the area with constantly updating keywords. Clicking on a keyword accesses a feed of the tweets in the area containing the keyword and then provides a live update stream.

Halted Development

http://blogs.wnyc.org/lehrer/2009/07/15/halted-development/

WNYC

WNYC’s interactive Google map uses crowdsourcing to pinpoint stalled developments in New York City as part of their “Your Uncommon Economics Indicators” project, which was a Knight-Batten Awards notable entry.   

Mexico Under Siege: The drug war at our doorstep

http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war

The Los Angeles Times

An interactive map, multimedia project, and Los Angeles Times aggregator for news about Mexico’s drug war.

Power Hungry: Visualizing the U.S. Electric Grid

http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/electric-grid/

NPR

An interactive map showing the United States power grid.

Immigration Explorer

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html?ref=us

The New York Times

An interactive map showing immigration patterns to the United States by country and continent since 1880.

Las Vegas Sun: Prescription Narcotic Interactive

http://www.lasvegassun.com/multimedia/rx_interactive/

Using the reports from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control and annual population estimates from the US Census, Todd Soligo and Alex Richards of the Sun were able to determine which states were using more and how they compared to others. Statistics on Hydocodone, Oxycodone, Methadone, Morphine, Codeine, Fentanyl and Meperidine use are displayed in a drop-down menu. Users can click and drag the bar at the top to explore prescription drug use over the last decade and also roll over the different states to see the dose breakdown and also the percent change in milligrams per person since 1997.

The Ottawa Citizen - Tracks to Freedom

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/freedom/index.html

The Ottawa Citizen had reporter Chris Lackner retrace a path on the Underground Railroad on an adventure that took 93 days. A photographer recorded the journey and Lackner reported in a blog. The Web site also has an interactive journey that lets the user make decisions and experience the trip of escaping from the south to Canada.

TheState.com - New Life for Five Points

http://www.thestateonline.com/news/flash/5pt/newdesign.html

The State newspaper and TheState.com created this multimedia piece to show improvements in the works in Columbia, S.C. Detailed descriptions and graphics show changes being made to the streetscape and underground, while animated graphics detail the construction process, such as how to replace old, fragile pipes using a technique called “pipe bursting.”

washingtonpost.com - Block by Block, the Changing Face of Southeast

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/graphics/stadium_081505/

To show the increasing property value and the number of real estate projects that have resulted from the proposed baseball stadium in Southeast Washington, D.C., washingtonpost.com created this informative graphic with a map overlaid on a satellite image of the area. Scrolling over the buildings and lots on the map brings up a box that tells what is in that location now, what is planned there in the future, who owns the real estate and how much it is worth.

WestportNow - Westport Teardowns Interactive Map

http://www.westportnow.com/index.php?/v2/teardowns/

WestportNow created this clickable, movable map to chronicle the number of houses being bought, torn down and replaced with “McMansions” in this Connecticut town. Dragging the cursor over a green dot displays the address, a photo of the lot, a status update and its purchase price. Clicking a dot gives a larger photo and more details about the lot.

Baristanet - Montclair Teardown Map

http://www.baristanet.com/2006/09/montclair_nj.php#more

Baristanet, a citizen media site and online community for Essex County, N.J., used Google Maps to create this application that tracks houses being torn down and new houses being built. Different colored icons are used to designate houses that will be torn down, houses that will be built on empty lots, and houses that are designated as “historic”—which does not necessarily protect them from demolition

The Chicago Tribune - King Tut

http://a630.g.akamai.net/f/630/22240/5m/tribune.download.akamai.com/22025/anon.chicagotribune/tut_king/tut_main.swf

The Chicago Tribune created an interactive map of one of the floors in The Field Museum for the 2006 temporary exhibit, Tutankhamen and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs. The map gives the users brief descriptions and images of the artifacts relating to King Tut and Egypt.

TBO.com Crime Tracker

http://crimetracker.tbo.com/

The Tampa Tribune, Tampa’s News Channel 8 (WFLA-TV) and Tampa bay Online have compiled crime data from the past four years into an easy-to-use map. Crimes such as arson, burglary, and drug offenses are dotted on a map that users can zoom and pan around. Detailed information for each crime is also available with the click of a mouse. TBO.com is constantly updating its crime tracker with new counties and data for past years.

BBC Iraq Navigator

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/iraq_navigator/html/default.stm

The BBC has designed an interactive map that lets visitors learn more about Iraq. Users can zoom in and out and move all around the map as they study the locations of suspected weapons sites, presidential palaces, oil fields, and other places of interest. Visitors can view the map of Iraq as a whole or the city of Baghdad specifically. Macromedia Flash Player required.

The Spokesman-Review's Conflict in Iraq

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/iraq/database/casualties_search.asp

“Conflict in Iraq” pays tribute to American soldiers stationed in Iraq. Photographs, stories and biographical profiles highlight soldiers, as well as everyday life in Iraq. A casualty database is searchable by name, date of death, service branch, and location of the incident. A news blog updates Iraqi developments.

LJWorld.com - In Cold Blood: A Legacy

http://www.ljworld.com/specials/incoldblood/

For the 45th anniversary of Truman Capote’s “nonfiction novel” about murders in rural Holcomb, Kansas, student reporters from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln examined the murder case, the book and their long-term effects on the people involved. LJWorld.com supplements the students’ articles and interviews with a timeline, photos, a five-part video documentary, maps and an archive of the Lawrence Journal-World’s coverage of the murders.

Chicago Tribune - The Mercury Menace

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/broadband/chi-mercury-htmlstory,0,3799369.htmlstory

After the Tribune’s testing showed that seafood for sale in Chicago area stores was tainted by mercury, it created this interactive package to explain the problem and the potential risks. After a video introduction explaining the potential dangers, users can read a three part series on the issue, take a survey on their seafood eating habits, post their thoughts, and use the Tribune Fish Mercury Calculator to see how much fish they can eat safely.

ChicagoCrime.org

http://www.chicagocrime.org/

ChicagoCrime.org offers a browsable database of 90-days of crime incidents and locations in the Chicago area. It was created by Adrian Holovaty, editor, editorial innovations, washingtonpost.com. He used Google Maps and data from the Chicago Police Department’s Citizen ICAM. Users can also find which day had the most and fewest crimes, which crimes are most reported and which locations experience the most crime. Also offered are RSS feeds specified for each police beat and city block.

MIT Media Laboratory - Zipcode Decode

http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/

This Web site lets users pinpoint their ZIP code—or anyone else’s—on a map of the United States.

Studio FKKC (Netherlands) - MappedUp

http://www.mappedup.com/

MappedUp takes news items from a wide array of RSS feeds and displays them on a world map represented by dots. Red and yellow dots appear on the map as new news is generated and headlines are displayed in bubbles for the viewer.

muti (South Africa) - News Map

http://muti.co.za/static/newsmap.html

By using Google Maps technology, News Map lets the user select any area in the world. Then the user is presented with a list of relevant stories for that region, generated from Yahoo! News. The site is run in South Africa but users can search for stories all over the globe.

Bakersfield.com - Interactive Maps

http://www.bakersfield.com/maps/

Bakersfield.com’s interactive maps initiative includes staff produced maps and collaborative maps in which citizens get involved in the process. Readers can add data, photos or video which are embedded in the maps. Among the offerings are maps of cameras shooting red-light violators, maps of potholes, local graffiti, night-life hot spots and local quirks such as the oldest elevator in town.

The Cincinnati Enquirer - CinciNavigator

http://data.cincinnati.com/navigator/

While other news sites are focusing on single topics for their map features, The Enquirer created a one-stop shop for a bevy of mappable data. Users can search by location for live traffic, crime data, smoking complaints, property sales, dog licenses and new businesses, among other things. Even the paper’s news stories are “geo-coded” by neighborhood and are viewable on the map.

WashingtonPost.com - 2008 Campaign Tracker

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker

A database driven tracker provides the user up to date information about each of the presidential candidates’ travels, fundraising, comparisons with other candidates and other campaign-related information. It is intended for use not just by readers, but also by other journalists and organizations. The tracker has been covering events since January 2007.

LJWorld.com - 2007 Lawrence City Commision General Election Results

http://www2.ljworld.com/elections/2007/apr/03/races/lawrence_city_commission/

Lawrence Journal World and 6News took advantage of all the web has to offer in covering the 2007 race for City Commisioner. Each candidate had a page on their site using multiple media to cover all aspects of the campaign process. They used interactive maps to display results in a unique way.

ChicagoCrime.org

http://www.chicagocrime.org/

ChicagoCrime.org offers a browsable database of 90-days of crime incidents and locations in the Chicago area. It was created by Adrian Holovaty, editor, editorial innovations, washingtonpost.com. He used Google Maps and data from the Chicago Police Department’s Citizen ICAM. Users can also find which day had the most and fewest crimes, which crimes are most reported and which locations experience the most crime. Also offered are RSS feeds specified for each police beat and city block.

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