UK Google Maps Mashup Round-up

UK Blood Donor Map

The National Blood Service in the UK is running a large media campaign to encourage people to donate blood. The campaign includes advertisements on national television that encourage viewers to use the website's Google Maps mashup to find the nearest place to give blood.

Users enter their address and the website produces a Google Map showing the nearest blood donor sessions in their vicinity. Markers show the location on the map and the map sidebar gives the distance from the user's address to the session venue. It is possible to sort the results by venue, date or distance.

Click on the column headings Venue, Next Date or Distance to sort by that column.

National Trust Places to Visit

The National Trust has produced a superb Google Maps mashup of places to visit and stay in the Peak District. The map includes an incredible number of points of interest, places to stay, facilities and things to do on your visit.

The map also features a very useful itinerary planner. Each point of interest on the map includes an 'add to my itinerary' link. When you have planned your destinations the map can even give you driving directions for all the places you wish to visit.

GPS Mountain Waypoints

Phil Newby has created a website that contains a large number of GPS waypoints for walking in UK mountains and hills in various GPS file formats. The collection includes Munros, Wainwrights, Corbetts, Hewitts, Marilyns, Nuttalls and many more.

Each collection comes with its own Google Map. The waypoints are displayed on the map with red map markers which, when clicked, show a Bing map of the location inside the Google Maps information window.

The Guardian's Guide to UK Hotels
The travel section of The Guardian online is a prolific user of Google Maps. The team seem to have devised a template to quickly create maps from data in a Google Spreadsheet.

The latest map to have been created from the template is this collection of UK hotels, featuring two years' worth of reviews by travel journalist Sally Shalam.

Zubed Jobs
Zubed Jobs is a Google Maps mashup designed to display job vacancies in the UK. To search for a job enter your address or postcode, a distance for the search radius and the type of job you are looking for.

The results are then displayed on a Google Map. Clicking on any of the map markers will open a window with the job details and a link to the company's website.

Subaru UK Map
The Subaru UK website features a Google Map to show dealerships and servicing centres. The map also features a handy parts finder. It is possible to search the map by location and to get directions from your home to your search results.

Scoopark
This Google Map will help you find motorbike parking in London. The map includes over 2,000 parking locations in the capital. The map can also tell you where your nearest petrol stations, dealers, services and police stations are located.

If that wasn't enough Scoopark is also available as a mobile phone application. Therefore you can find your nearest parking location even when you are out on the town!

Love Camping
Love camping? Then you will love this Google Maps mashup. Love Camping is one of the most comprehensive guides to camp-sites in the UK. It is possible to search Love Camping's database of over 3,000 camp-sites via the site's Google Maps mashup.

Sussex Air Quality Map
The Sussex Air Quality Partnership promotes improvements in air quality related issues in Sussex. The site features a Google Map that is designed to give public access to air quality monitoring data gathered within Sussex and beyond.

The map uses numbered markers so users can get a very quick snapshot of the air quality in the county.

NotSpot
This Google Maps mashup shows areas of slow or no broadband coverage in the UK. The map displays 'not-spots' and 'slow-spots'. A "not-spot" is an area where you can't get broadband at all. A 'slow-spot' is an area where you can only get a broadband service with a speed of below 2 Mbps (downstream).

SoundAroundYou
The project ‘Sound Around You’, funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council), aims to research the sound environment of the UK. The project includes a soundscape map, using the Google Maps API, to display the ever expanding collection of soundscape recordings and responses.

As soon as a project participant uploads a new recording, it is marked on the map. By clicking on a marker you can open up a window displaying the participants individual responses to the soundscape as well as the recording itself.


A very special thanks to Mapperz, who has worked very hard over the last two weeks helping me put together this list of Google Maps mashups for the UK. If you are interested in maps you really should bookmark the Mapperz blog. Mapperz reports extensively on GIS and mapping news and about the best new online maps.

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Find a Cook on Google Maps

Book of Cooks
Book of Cooks is an online social community for those who love to cook and those who love to eat good food. Using the site it is possible to order prepared food from cooks in your area, review and share your dining experiences with others or showcase your own cooking skills and earn money. The video below introduces the site in more detail,



Book of Cooks uses the Google Maps API to provide users with a list of culinary professionals and speciality cuisines in their areas. You can access the map from the site's home page, where you can search by the type of food you are looking for and the city you are located in.

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Michael Jackson Memorial Map

Michael Jackson's Life Journey

Mibazaar has created a Google Maps mashup that shows Michael Jackson's biography from his birth in Gary in 1958 to his recent death. The map shows important stages in Michael Jackson's life and is accompanied by the occasional video from YouTube.

The map automatically animates, in chronological order, through the map markers. It is possible to pause the map at any time and there are forward and back buttons, so it is also possible to navigate manually.

Other Mibazaar Biography Maps

• Barack Obama's Journey to the White House
• John McCain's Journey to the White House
• Joe Biden's Life Journey
• Sarah Palin's Life Journey

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Tour de France Live Tracking Map

Ubilabs Tour De France Live Tracker

Ubilabs have provided live tracking maps of the race leaders in the Tour de France for the last few years and they are back again this year with an improved map. This year, as well as showing positions of the race leaders, the Google Map displays real time tweets about the race.

It is possible to view the routes for any of the race's stages from a drop down menu. Each stage route contains map markers showing start and finish lines and the mountain and sprint stages.

Bikemap.net
This Google Maps mashup has route maps for all the stages in the Tour de France. The map includes a 'full-screen' button, which can be used to enlarge the map.

The individual maps for each stage are accompanied with an altitude graph, which can show the altitude at any point on the stage route. The map also comes with an 'embed this map' option, so it is possible to feature the map on your own website or blog.

Accompanying each stage map are details about the length, the surface, the inclination and the vertical climb of the stage. The maps also come with a 'more' button. Clicking on this allows the map user to view Wikipedia articles, Panoramio photos and weather along the route.

Via: Mapperz

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If North Korea Nuked Your Home!

Ground Zero II

Have you ever wondered what would happen if a nuclear bomb goes off in your city? The very popular Google Map mashup from Carlos Labs, that shows the fallout of a nuclear bomb landing on your house, has now been updated.

The new version comes with nuclear fallout, wind direction and pressure. It also comes with a new weapon! Now you can check what the fallout would be if North Korea decided to aim their 6 Kiloton nuclear weapon directly at your home.

Let's just hope they don't.

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Find Yuppies and Cougars on Google Maps

TownMe Yuppie Locator

Do you want to find yourself a sugar daddy? Thanks to the Yuppie Locator you now can.

TownMe have used U.S. Census data to rank U.S. neighborhoods based on certain funny factors (e.g. Yuppies, Cougars, Starving Students). Using the Yuppie Locator it is possible to generate Google Maps showing you where all the yuppies, cougars, sugar daddies etc. live in your town.

Using the Yuppie Locator you can pick a city and see which areas in that city are populated with the TownMe factors.

Here's an example for Yuppies in San Francisco:
http://www.townme.com/san-francisco-ca/yuppie-locator/yuppies

Or, one for Cougars in Manhattan:
http://www.townme.com/manhattan-ny/yuppie-locator/cougars

In addition to ranking the neighborhoods, TownMe also give the city an overall index on a scale of 0-100 for a given factor. If you click the 'read more' link, TownMe describes and defines exactly which pieces of census info were used to calculate the index.

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Friday Fun on Google Maps

The Wire in Street View

'Paddy' has put together a nice collection of Street View images of locations in Baltimore from the hit TV series The Wire. You can also download this kml from the Google Earth Community and view some of the filming locations in Google Earth.

WalkJogRun.net
Adam Howitt, of WalkJogRun.net, recently appeared on lifestyle show Better. In the video below Adam talks a little about the original idea behind the map and how you can use the apllication to improve your fitness.


GeoMaker
GeoMaker creates microformats and maps from geographical information embedded in texts. The output from GeoMaker can be a Yahoo Map or a geo-microformat that can be used with the Google Maps API.

The site comes with an API that can produce results in json, kml or csv formats. There is also a lol format to the API, which outputs a latitude and a lolitude from any data entered, e.g.

HAS A LOL-CATION:
CAN HAS WOEID: 2347563
HAS A NAME: California, US
HAS A DISCRIPSHUN: California
I'M IN YOUR LATITUDE: 37.2718
I'M IN YOUR LOLITUDE: -119.27

Google Maps Tracks Down Stolen iPhone

Kevin Miller explains on his blog how he used Google Maps to track down his stolen iPhone. Kevin used Apple's MobileMe application, which uses Google Maps to help you locate a lost or stolen phone.

With the aid of MobileMe and a friend's laptop Kevin was able to track down the thief whilst he was waiting at a bus-stop.

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Fourth of July Events on Google Maps

The official Google LatLong blog has now hijacked this post ;) and point out many of the Google Map mashups produced by The Washington Post displaying Fourth of July celebrations. This includes a map of the various events going on throughout the holiday weekend, a map of fireworks shows throughout the entire region and this map showing the best viewing locations for the fireworks over the National Mall.

The use of Google Maps in news and community websites has become pretty endemic this year. Here's some Google Maps, from all over the USA, showing the locations of fireworks and celebrations for this Fourth of July:

• Forks, WA Old Fashioned Fourth of July
• Huntsville, AL Fourth of July Fireworks Map
• Fourth of July in Central PA Map
• Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular Map
• Sonoma 4th of July Fireworks Map
• Milwaukee Fourth of July Festivities Map
• West Michigan Fourth of July Fireworks
• Fourth of July Celebrations in the San Francisco Area
• Silicon Valley Community Fireworks Map
• Washington DC 4th of July Parade Route Map
• Fourth of July events in Lee, Charlotte, Collier counties
• Otoe County, Nebraska
• North Jersey Fourth of July Events
• Wyoming Rumble in the Basin - 4th of July Fireworks

If you know about any I have missed leave a link in the comments.

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Russian Google Maps Roundup

Aroundme

Aroundme is a very nicely designed Google Maps based social sharing site for Moscow. Registered users are able to show the location of their favourite places in Moscow and find points of interest added by other users.

Mirtesen

Mirtesen is a social networking site that uses Google Maps to show the location of members. As well as allowing members to make new friends and connections the site also encourages the social sharing of points of interest.

Sosedi-Online
This Google Map mashup is designed so that neighbours can connect online. It is a forum for people to help each other learn more about their city and the region. The site allows users to not only connect with other users but to rate and review local locations and learn more about their neighbourhood.

Via: Abavanet, Google Maps Mania.RU

Rusavtobus

Rusvatobus have partnered with Moscow's transport authority to provide an English guide to the city's public transport system on Google Maps. Using the map it is possible to enter your starting and finishing destination. The map then displays the best route you can take using public transport.

The route is displayed on the map and listed in detail under the map.

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The Sarkozy Live Tracking Google Map

Le Sarko Map

If it is good enough for the Queen of England then it is good enough for the president of the French Republic. Nicolas Sarkozy is now being tracked on Google Maps thanks to our friends at 20Minutes.fr and Map Channels.

20Minutes.fr have worked with Map Channels to produce a Google Map that shows the future planned appearances and visits of the French President. The location of each engagement is shown by a map marker in the form of Sokozy's smiling face and the dates are listed in the map sidebar.

Also See

The Royal Diary Map - map displaying the forthcoming engagements of the Queen of England

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