Wounded Rhymes
Lykke Li is a Swedish artist whose new album 'Wounded Rhymes' is out this week.
To help launch the new album a cool Street View based application has been released. Using the app you can follow Lykke Li's path to places of emotional significance in her life with Google Maps Street View and Google Earth. On your journey you also get the chance to listen to Li's songs.
To find Lykke Li's path in the promotion you need to follow the directions indicated by a compass rose in Google Maps Street View. The compass points in the direction that you have to travel and the distance to travel is given in metres. When you arrive at the specified destination, by navigating with the normal Street View controls, you are rewarded with the video of a song from Lykke Li.
You are now ready to move onto the next destination. Press the 'Search for the next rhyme' button and you will be taken to the next Street View hunt. The application uses Google Earth to zoom you out of the current location and transport you to the next part of the game.
If you register you can even save your progress and come back another time to continue your journey.
Crowdbeacon
Crowdbeacon is a great new app that lets you ask location based questions. The app is available for the iPhone and for the desktop.
Using the app you can click on a Google Map to set your location (if you are using your phone your location will be detected automatically). Once you have determined your location you can then ask your question. For example, you could ask where the best restaurant for tapas is nearby or ask if there is anywhere with live music in the neighborhood.
Your question is then posted to other Crowdbeacon users in your vicinity. When you sign up to Crowdbeacon you are asked to choose one category that you are willing to help people in your home city with (i.e, nightlife, shopping, restaurants etc.). This self-identified choice powers the Crowdbeacon notification system, which lets the user know that someone in their city has a question about the category they chose.
I asked Crowdbeacon for a great place to get breakfast on Van Ness Ave in San Francisco. Despite it being 2.30 am I started getting suggestions in a matter of seconds. Which is pretty impressive (unfortunately, as I was actually in London, I couldn't check out how good any of the suggestions were).
If no one nearby is listening and you don't get a real-time repsonse Crowdbeacon will answer your question with relevant information from other location-based services such as Yelp, Foursquare and Wishpond.
Moonshadow Census Maps 2010
Last month Moonshadow released a great Google Maps application to visualise the 2010 New Jersey census data. The company have now released apps to visualise the census data for the states of New Jersey, Maryland and Oregon.
These Google Map based apps allow users to closely examine the census data returns in each state. Using the applications you can set filters, colors and generate heat maps. You can display census block lines, as well as County lines, Congressional, State House and State Senate districts. You can even zoom down to the census block level and download the actual census data for a block.
More state maps will follow in the coming days and weeks as additional block level data becomes available from the US Census Bureau.
