PixyCity
PixyCity is a new location based service using Google Maps to share and discover local news and events.
PixyCity uses Google Maps to create city communities where people can meet, talk and inform others. PixyCity is crowd-sourcing this local news and event data and uses Karma points to encourage user contributions.
For every event or news item added to PixyCity users earn 'Karma points'. Karma points can then be used to buy poster and billboard space on PixyCity to advertise an event, website etc.
Using PixyCity you can save a location as your 'home' and you can define the area that you wish to view news and events for by using the map zoom controls.
Here at Google, we love the experience of browsing photos on a map, and today it just got a lot easier. We have launched an update to the design of the Photo layer in Google Maps to provide you with a better experience when browsing your favorite places:
There are three main improvements in this latest update:
Firstly, we have made improvements to the density of the photos on the map, making it easier to see clusters of photos in popular locations. On the screenshot above, you can now well see that there are a lot more photos taken on the coast than there are inland.
Secondly, we’ve made the small thumbnails partially transparent, making it easier to see the underlying map, and helping you to stay oriented. On the screenshot above, the city and neighborhood labels are now more legible.
Finally, we are showing more information when you hover over a photo. Now, you can see a large thumbnail and the title of each image, so you can get a fast preview of what any photo looks like.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the new layer, so feel free to leave us your comments in the Panoramio forum.
Jonah Jones, User Experience Designer, Google Maps
Americans for Peace Now - Facts on the Ground
Americans for Peace Now are using Google Maps to display the data the orgainsation has collected about settlement activity in the West Bank.
The map contains several layers, that can be selected from the Layer Selector. The layers include the West Bank Barrier, the Israeli Municipal Jurisdiction and the Palestinian Residential Areas.
If you select an individual settlement you can view the data that the Americans for Peace Now organisation have collected about it, such as the year it was established and its population. The map also includes a few news stories posted by Americans for Peace Now. The news stories include links that you can click to read the story in full elsewhere on the site.
Directions Map with Animated Street View
Can you create the best Street View tour?
Today's task dear reader is to create the most scenic Street View tour with Directions Map and post a link to your tour in the comments below.
If you need a directions widget for your business, school or college you could do a lot worse than embed a free Directions Map widget on your website. Directions Map uses Google Maps to help users create an embedable driving directions map for their website or blog.
The really fun part of this Google Maps based widget however is that it also allows you to create animated Street View tours. If you just add a starting point and a destination to Directions Map you can then view the route entirely in Street View.
Directions Map allows users to create driving directions from any starting point to any location. Users can also define the height, width and the map type of their widget. Once the widget has been embedded on a website it can then be used to follow the given driving directions or to view an animated walk-through of the route in Street View.
The animated walk-throughs of routes with Street View are very impressive. Given the impressive nature of these Street View animated routes I can see Directions Map also being used by websites to create virtual tours. In fact Directions Map has created a number of example animated Street View routes for locations around the world.
Here are links to some of the example animated Street View routes:
Chapmans Peak Drive, South Africa
Chateau d'Eox , Switzerland
Golden Gate Bridge
Colosseum, Rome
Las Vegas Boulevard
London, from the Houses of Parliament to the British Museum
Because Directions Map uses dynamic URL's you can even play about with the web address to quickly create your own routes by changing the start point and destination in the URL.
Here is the URL for New York to Boston:
http://s3.tripgeo.com/dirmap/map.htm?from=New%20York&to=Boston
If you want to view a Street View animation of the route from New York to San Francisco just change 'Boston' to 'San Francisco in the URL above. So what routes can you create. Post links to your routes in the comments below.
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Directions Map with Animated Street View
Can you create the best Street View tour?
Today's task dear reader is to create the most scenic Street View tour with Directions Map and post a link to your tour in the comments below.
If you need a directions widget for your business, school or college you could do a lot worse than embed a free Directions Map widget on your website. Directions Map uses Google Maps to help users create an embedable driving directions map for their website or blog.
The really fun part of this Google Maps based widget however is that it also allows you to create animated Street View tours. If you just add a starting point and a destination to Directions Map you can then view the route entirely in Street View.
Directions Map allows users to create driving directions from any starting point to any location. Users can also define the height, width and the map type of their widget. Once the widget has been embedded on a website it can then be used to follow the given driving directions or to view an animated walk-through of the route in Street View.
The animated walk-throughs of routes with Street View are very impressive. Given the impressive nature of these Street View animated routes I can see Directions Map also being used by websites to create virtual tours. In fact Directions Map has created a number of example animated Street View routes for locations around the world.
Here are links to some of the example animated Street View routes:
Chapmans Peak Drive, South Africa
Chateau d'Eox , Switzerland
Golden Gate Bridge
Colosseum, Rome
Las Vegas Boulevard
London, from the Houses of Parliament to the British Museum
Because Directions Map uses dynamic URL's you can even play about with the web address to quickly create your own routes by changing the start point and destination in the URL.
Here is the URL for New York to Boston:
http://s3.tripgeo.com/dirmap/map.htm?from=New%20York&to=Boston
If you want to view a Street View animation of the route from New York to San Francisco just change 'Boston' to 'San Francisco in the URL above. So what routes can you create. Post links to your routes in the comments below.
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