The Maps of Amsterdam

 
The Planning Department of the City of Amsterdam has created a number of interesting Google Maps, all of which can be found in the Interactieve Kaarten section of their website.

The maps cover a range of subjects that will be of interest to local citizens, including housing, green spaces, climate and building use. For example the Woningwaarde Map plots the cost of housing in the city. Using a heat map overlay this map shows the average cost of housing throughout the city.

Another interesting map is the Niet-Woonfuncties Map which shows the blueprint of all non-residential properties in the city. On the map each non-residential property is shaded to show whether the property is used for business, retail, leisure etc.

There are a lot of other maps to explore on the site and all the data used in the maps is also available at Open GEO-Data. 

Where Do I Vote?

 
If you want to know where to vote then you should check out the Voter Information section of the Google Politics and Elections website. 

Here you can find a Polling Place Lookup tool that will tell where you should vote. If you enter your address your polling place will be shown on a small Google Map alongside the full postal address and the hours of opening. You can also click on the 'get directions' link to get the full directions from your home to your polling place.

#NYCGAS on Google Maps

 
Justmap.it has created a crowd-sourced Google Map to help New Yorkers and Long Islanders find gas stations that are currently selling gas.

The map shows the latest Twitter messages that include #NYCGAS. The messages can contain information about whether a gas station currently has gas and the length and duration of queues.


Gas Station is a crowd-sourced Google Map showing operating gas stations and gas availability in New York and New Jersey.

The map uses red markers to indicate gas stations that have sold out of gas and green markers to show those that are open. If you click on a marker you can get more information, where available, on likely waiting times and when gas might be available.

To contribute information to the map post a Tweet with information about a gas station including '@IMSOCIO2012' in the message.

The Google Crisis Map for NYC now includes a public transit map showing open subway lines, MTA replacement shuttle buses and road work and traffic advisories.The map also shows open and closed gas stations, pharmacies and restaurants. The map also includes a layer that shows open and closed food stores in New Jersey. 

Can Twitter Predict the Election?

In this presidential election voters have taken to social media like never before. Is it possible then to try and analyse social media engagement to predict the winner of tomorrow's election?

 
The Twitter Political Engagement Map is a real-time guide to the current political temperature, state by state. The map shows Tweets from @BarackObama and @MittRomney organized by engagement on Twitter.

The Tweets from each candidate are represented by a bar and the size indicates engagement on that Tweet. If you select a Tweet's bar you can view a heat map of engagement state by state on the accompanying map.

 
Whilst Twitter's own map shows how people are responding to the candidate's own Tweets theObama vs Romney Tweet Battle shows how many people are Tweeting "Obama" or "Romney".

The map includes a real-time count of Tweets mentioning each candidate. It is also possible to view a heat map showing where each candidate is being Tweeted about the most.

 
The Bing Elections Center has taken another approach to analysing social media political messages. Their social media analysis attempts to actually gauge the positive and negative feelings about each candidate in social media posts.

Bing have asked a number of questions, such as 'How do people feel about the candidates?', and analysed Tweets to gauge the current mood of the electorate.