Another good pointer from the Canadian Cartographic Assoc.

A TechNews (and a number of other news sites) story talks about the directions some of the larger online map providers are heading. With the release of Google Maps, Google Earth, Microsoft’s Live Local and upgrades to other online mapping sites such as Yahoo! Maps
all in the past year, the online mapping industry has become very
competitive. With many such sites offering a similar product, the key
is to differentiate oneself from one’s competitors by offer new
information or presenting existing information in a unique manner.
States the article: “Microsoft Corp. is working on a mechanism that
would have avid mountain bikers, for example, collectively plot good
trails. Yahoo Inc. is appealing to its users to add information on
local businesses and places of interest. Yahoo even recently bought Upcoming.org, a collaborative calendar of events.”

Interestingly, Mapquest
“estimates that driving directions cost [the] company a penny apiece
and a static map much less — expenses recouped through sales of ads
displayed at the site.” The article goes on to discuss the online map
sites’ different approaches to the problem of determining the right
driving directions.”

Should you not be lucky enough to read a daily that carries Wiley's “Non Sequitur” comic strip, we're taking the risk of passing this along.  Note that you can buy a copy suitable for mounting at the UComics Store.
It might make an appropriate poster to hang in the window of an about-to-close newspaper.

The Rocky 
took a bold swing at developing an interesting web server application
this month.  And the editor sees that this attempt is extensible.

— From Adena Schutzberg, executive editor, Directions Magazine http://www.allpointsblog.com/archives/957-guid.html

“Rocky Mountain News Editor: Web Mapping Isn't that Easy

“The Rocky Mountain News
gets a lot of coverage due to its strong online presence. Some 42
“hubs” cover local news and encourage citizen journalism. So, it was
quite interesting to read editor, publisher and president John Temple's
discussion of attempting an interactive map of Christmas lights in his editorial  from December 24 higlighting the paper's accomplishments.

I hope you feel it in this newspaper and on our Web site
every day. A passion. A passion for trying new things to serve you
better. A passion for telling stories.

Take our new mapping service for Christmas light tours. This year,
instead of just printing maps in the paper, we're offering personalized
maps on our Web site.

In the newspaper, we have to give everybody the same map. On the Web, you can create the map that best suits your needs.

Go to com and click on “Holiday Lights” and you'll find an offer to “Get directions to light displays in your area.”

It will take you to a page where you can enter the address where you
want to start your tour. Click on “Find Nearest” and you'll get a
listing of the best nearby displays. In my case, there were 16 within
three miles. Choose the ones you want to visit and click on “Find
Route” and you'll get step-by-step directions and a map of the entire
route. Print it and you'll have a guide for a fun excursion.

We developed this service as an experiment with ESRI, a Boulder company
that specializes in Web mapping. We wanted to see what was possible.

It wasn't as easy as we had hoped. For example, I'd love – yes, love –
for people to be able to post their own pictures of their lights on our
Web site and to have them show up with the addresses when others call
up a map. I'd like for you to be able to e-mail the light show
creators. And, of course, you should be able to get our maps and photos
on your cell phone while you're driving, maybe even with a soundtrack
to make your journey more fun. And how about coupons or special offers
from coffee shops or gas stations for participating? But those ideas
will have to wait for future years.

This mapping effort, believe it or not, is linked to our plans to help
you decide how to vote in the 2006 election. We're going to build our
deepest election Web site ever, where just by punching in your address
you'll be able to find links to all our stories and data, such as
campaign finance reports and information about the candidates and
issues you'll find on your ballot.

We hope you'll walk into your polling place next November with a printout from RockyMountainNews.com as your sample ballot.

“Of course ESRI is based in Redlands, California. I'm sure that the
local office worked their butts off in developing the app. Still, he's
right – the hodgepodge of voting for lights displays (which linked to PDF maps???), routing by RouteMap IMS, and a grid to find local displays were quite challenging to navigate.”

One
of the interesting and most challenging aspects of cartography is that
of mapping ideas and their ebb and flow in populations.  Think of
trying to dynamically map memes and at what scale.  How, for
example, does the concepts of neo-conservatism or approval of national
health care move through a society and what does that movement look
like on a map?



Recently, following race riots down under, the Sydney Morning Herald
took a crack at trying to map “tolerance.”  While the results are
not perfect, it's a good go at a difficult problem.  Here's how
the CCA blog reported it.



“Mapping Tolerance in Sydney
Published Sunday, December 25, 2005 by CCAer



The Sydney Morning Herald has a story on a map
produced after the Cronulla race riots earlier this month. The map is
based on a survey of 1,800 respondents and was conducted by Associate
Professor Jim Forrest, of Macquarie University, Kevin Dunn, of the University of NSW and others.



From
the article: “Less tolerant areas include outer locations such as
Gosford and Campbelltown, but also culturally mixed areas such as
Bankstown and Ryde. Bankstown has a substantial Muslim population,
while Ryde has many Chinese and Koreans. Culturally diverse areas such
as Parramatta, Marrickville and Penrith, and the suburbs Hurstville,
Randwick and Botany, are tolerant.”



The map
itself is fairly generalized and could use a better colour scheme.
Based on 1,800 respondents across the area, that means that less than
100 residents would determine how a neighbourhood is classed. Still, in
light of recent events in Australia, an interesting map.”

The NYTimes online site has done a nice job of apparently utilizing some Google Map tools to gather and report news of the transit strike and related citizen stories.  See the “Interactive Feature” on the NYT opening page.

Tamara Thompson provides yet another good pointer:

~ researching private companies ~

By Tamara Thompson Investigations

Bird's eye view maps have long been an interesting perspective for mapmakers and users of maps.  (They have also been a splendid tool for hyping real estate and city development on America's spread to the west, but that's a story for another day.)  Comes today this interesting resource at http://ccablog.blogspot.com/2005/12/birds-eye-views.html

Tom
Patterson of the U. S. National Park Service has published a 32 page
paper on the creation of bird's eye views. The paper, published in
NACIS’ fall issue of Cartographic Perspectives, is available on his Shaded Relief website and is in pdf format. Also available are numerous examples.
From the abstract: “A brief historical review looks at the antecedents
of current NPS products dating back to the Renaissance. The practical
second half of the paper focuses on how the NPS now designs these
bird’s-eye views with 3D software, with an eye toward cost savings.
Topics include viewing parameters in a 3D scene, preparing DEMs,
modeling buildings, designing trees, and creating environmental special
effects.” Patterson points out in his paper that “If the output from 3D
software has a visual fault it is the tendency for it to look
hyper-realistic—too smooth, shiny, and simulated.” The paper contains
numerous tips for the creation of a realistic bird’s eye illustration.”

Thanks again to the http://ccablog.blogspot.com/

From “Cartography,” the Canadian Cartography Association's most
excellent blog at http://ccablog.blogspot.com/

“The self-declared goal of the Map Projections web page 'is to present on-line, as complete a collection as possible, historical published map projections.' Currently there are over 300 such examples, all as black line drawings in pdf format, classed into 7 categories. The map projections were produced using personally developed computer programs, some of which is available for download or by way of email request (see About – in pdf format).”
For the Map Projection page, see
http://www.ilstu.edu/microcam/map_projections/

The LLRX newsletter reports:

Old
and New

THOMAS, the legislative Web site from the
Library of Congress, has received its second facelift in the space of a year.
(For information on the previous set of tweaks, see my January 2005 column
THOMAS: New Congress, A Few
Changes.) The latest redesign, announced in a November 2005
press release, does
not add much substantial content or functionality but gives THOMAS an updated
look similar to the main Library of Congress web
site and a consistent site-wide navigation scheme that certainly was needed.

Beth Kopine, Resource Center Director at the Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc., has done some fast and insightful work creating a page of digital resources that will assist anyone in covering the NY City transit strike, and any other, for that matter.  See “IRE and NICAR Resource Page: NY Transit Strike”