Google Maps adds experimental features to its maps page.

Google Maps has added a lot of experimental features to its maps.google.com page. To enable/select each of the feature, look for the "New" link at the top right on the Google Maps page.

One of the features lets you rotate the maps. Here is India upside down: (Other features listed below)



Drag 'N' Zoom: Zooming in on a specific part of the map is now fast and easy. Simply click the Drag 'n' Zoom button, draw a box on the map, and zoom! You're there!

Aerial Imagery: Add Aerial imagery to the map! Aerial imagery gives you rotatable, high-resolution overhead imagery presented in a new perspective. Currently imagery is only available in certain areas, but we're adding more all the time.

Back to Beta Tag: Gmail isn't the only one that can enjoy a BETA tag.

Where in the World Game geography game: Test your knowledge of world geography! Guess the name of the country from satellite imagery, and try to beat your top score!

Rotable Maps: Tired of North always being up? Add rotatable map types and give East, West and South a fair go.

What's around here: Adds a second search button that searches for "*", returning the top results in the current view. A great way to browse the map.

Lat Long Tooltip: Displays a tooltip next to the mouse cursor showing the latlng directly underneath it.

Lat Long Marker: Adds an option to the context menu that lets you drop a mini marker showing the latlng of the position that the cursor was pointing at when the context menu was evoked

Smart Zoom: Ever zoom in too far and get the message "We don't have imagery at this zoom level"? Ensure you don't see it again, with Smart Zoom, which will check in advance what imagery exists, and ensure you can't zoom in beyond it.

(via Stephen Shankland's Twitter status)

The Tragedy of Edmund Fitzgerald - #googlemaps #googlewave

Edmund Fitzgerald sank 34 years ago on November 10th, 1975 in Lake Superior. All 29 crew members lost their lives that day. I have created a Google Maps Mashup which shows the exact location of the tragedy in Lake Superior along with hometowns of the mariners on Edmund Fitzgerald who died. I have also created a Google Wave gadget of this mashup.

When the map first loads up it shows the location where the ship sank along with a video of the song from Gordon Lightfoot which is dedicated to Edmund Fitzgerald. There is a link above the video ("Click here for mariners hometown") which when clicked shows the hometowns of mariners hometown. The information window above the mariner markers has a forward and back arrows which when clicked takes you to the next mariner location.

Female to Male Participation in Labor Force

World Economic Forum has published "Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010" which features 133 economies. The report contains extensive section of data tables with global rankings covering over 100 indicators. One of table looks at "Female to Male Participation in Labor Force" which I mashed it up with Google Maps. Topping the list is Mozambique where for the ratio is 1.16 (I would have thought it would be much lower in Mozambique) and way at the bottom is Jordan where the ratio is 0.22. United States is ranked 39th.

Twitter goes Big Time with Location Data

Twitter announced today that it will release a new API that will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet (via Google Maps Mania and Programmable Web)

This is interesting because just last week I created a Google Maps Mashup of users last X number of tweets. While looking at the Twitter API related to user tweets I found out that Twitter does store location information with each status update. However the way this worked was I had to update my location (via tweetie) on my iPhone and this updated location would be attached to my next status update. So hopefully with the new API the tweet location update process would be much simpler.

Here's an example of Tweets(status updates) with location information. User is Zoe Griffin a "Celebrity Gossip Columnist" from UK. The map moves on to the next location after every 8 seconds.

http://www.mibazaar.com/mytweets.php?uid=zoegriffin (replace the user id at the end with your twitter id. However do update your location before updating your status)


View Larger Map

Bollywood Celebrities on Twitter #bollywood

Here is a Google Maps Mashup showing the last 10 tweets of each of the bollywood celebrities. Click on the radio button on the left to select the Bollywood Celebrity whose tweets you want to see.

The Map automatically moves on to the next tweet after every 8 seconds. You can however disable it by clicking on forward/back arrows in the information window above the marker. Currently the Bollywood Celebrities show on this map are Priyanka Chopra, Preity Zinta, Uday Chopra, Dino Morea, Mallika Sherawat and Karan Johar. If you know of more Bollywood Celebrities who are on Twitter please do let me know and I will add it.



You can embed this map in your website. Here's the code:


<iframe width="425" height="425" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.mibazaar.com/bollytweets.php"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.mibazaar.com/bollytweets.php" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>


Twitter Status Map updated

I have updated my twitter status map. Should have done this early. Now you can click on url's embedded in your twitter status. For example here's how Bollywood's Mallika Sherawat's Twitter Status looks like on a map:


View Larger Map

You can Embed the map in your website. Here's the code!! Replace the mibazaar user id in BOLD with your Twitter user id


<iframe width="425" height="425" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.mibazaar.com/twitstat.php?uid=mibazaar"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.mibazaar.com/twitstat.php?uid=mibazaar" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>


Problem with Google's Geocoding API

UPDATE: This seems to be working now
All my twitter mashups (iran tweets, iran protests, ford fiesta, latest twitter status, michael jackson tweets...) stopped working because of the following error with Google's Geocoding API:

Looks like the end tag </AdministrativeArea> is missing. Hoping they would fix this error soon.

XML Parsing Error: mismatched tag. Expected: </AdministrativeArea>
Location: http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?key=APIKEY&output=xml&q=plymouth,mi
Line Number 15, Column 5: </Placemark>

Michael Jackson Biographical Map #michaeljackson

Here's Michael Jackson bio map which I created which shows important stages in Michael Jackson's life and also has couple of YouTube videos.

The map automatically animates, in chronological order, through the map markers. You can however pause the auto play feature by clicking on "Pause Auto Play" or just by clicking on forward, back arrows.

Also check out Michael Jackson twitter map (tweets from Western/Eastern United States, Europe, India and Australia)

RIP - Michael Jackson - Twitter World Reacts #michaeljackson

Michael Jackson is Dead and Twitter World reacts. Here is map of Michael Jackson Tweets from Western/Eastern United States, Europe, India and Australia

Embed the map in your website. Here's the code!!


<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.mibazaar.com/michaeljackson.html"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.mibazaar.com/michaeljackson.html" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>


Ford's Fiesta Movement Mapped (#fiestamovement)

Some time back Ford recruited 100 "Agents" to test drive their Ford Fiesta (to be launched in 2010/2011). These agents will spend 6 months behind the wheel of their own Fiesta, lifestreaming their experiences on Twitter/YouTube.

Check out what they are upto in this twitter map I created.

(Fiesta Movement website)

Embed the map in your website. Here's the code!!


<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.mibazaar.com/fordfiesta.html"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.mibazaar.com/fordfiesta.html" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>


Iran Election Protest Mashups

With the ongoing protests going on in Iran over the Election results, here are couple of Google Maps Mashups I created:

Tweets from Middle East, Europe, Eastern and Western United States related to Iran Election Protests:



Geo-Tagged YouTube Videos of Iran Election Protests:

NCAA Men's Basketball Championship History on Google Maps

Check out my NCAA Mens' Basketball Championship History - Google Maps Mashup which I had created couple of years ago. It shows locations of championship teams, the runners-up, championship venues from 1939 to 2008. You can sort the data by Scores, Miles traveled by winners and losers.

"Unemployed" Tweets

With the current state of our economy, I decided to look at twitter for tweets with "Unemployed" keyword. I took this information from Twitter along with User's location and mapped it out on Google Maps.

There are two buttons at the top left corner of the map which are labeled "Eastern Untied States" and "Western United States". The map defaults to "Eastern". If you click on "Eastern United States" button then tweets are shown from within 1500 miles radius of "Cincinnati, Ohio". If you click on "Western United States" button then tweets are shown from within 1500 miles radius of "Los Angeles".
(Thanks to Google Maps Mania for mentioning this mashup)

The World's most Dangerous Airports

I bumped into a site called oddee.com which lists the world's most dangerous airports. I have taken this list along with videos from YouTube and created a Google Maps Mashup. Take a look at the 747 landing at Princess Juliana International airport (St. Martin). Wow!

Medical use of Marijuana by State

Here's a Google Map of states where according to this article "marijuana is now, for all practical purposes, legal in 13 states. thanks to Obama".

The map shows the 13 states which allow use of Marijuana for Medical purpose. It also shows usage of Medical Marijuana as of January 14th, 2009 (source: procon.org)

Academy Awards on Google Maps

The 81st Academy Awards will be held on February 22nd, 2009 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

Here's a Google Maps Mashup of the Best Actors from 1928 to present day. There's also YouTube video clips embedded in the Map for some of the actors.

Valentine Day Google Maps Mashup

I created a Valentine Day Google Maps Mashup couple of years ago. It shows Victoria Secret/Lovers Lane stores, florists, movie theaters in your city/state or zip code (for US Locations only).
Note: Click here for facebook version.

Australian Fires - Google Maps + YouTube Videos

I put together this quick Google Maps Mashup of Australian Fires which so far has claimed upwards of 100 lives. The Map shows the latest geotagged YouTube Videos. Click on the arrow button in the top right corner of the map to view the next or previous videos.

Layoffs - 2009

Total number of jobs lost in January 2009 adds to over 130,000 of which yesterday alone saw 70,000 jobs lost. Here's a look on Google Maps, the location of corporations which are laying off employees. (Note: the data shown is sourced from Forbes and is for 2009).

Fortune's 100 Best Companies to work for in 2009

Fortune has come out with a list of 100 best companies to work for in 2009. Topping the list this year is Netapp. Google drops to #4. Here's a Google Maps View of 100 top companies: