The Google Maps of the Week

Over the last couple of years we've seen quite a few clever promotional campaigns centred around Google Maps. However I think that the promotional campaign for the movie Silent Hill is the first to actually create a Google Map for a fictional town.


The Silent Hill Map does a pretty good job at replicating the Google Maps map style. The map itself allows the user to explore the fictional town of Silent Hill and even includes three short clips from the movie presented as Street Views. If you click on any of the three map markers and then select the 'street view' link you can watch a short clip from the movie presented in the form of Google Maps Street Views.

The map also includes links to a Residential Silent Hill Directory, where you can explore the characters in the film and even add yourself to the town's directory of residents. 


Elsewhere this week I liked two very different approaches to real-estate mapping.


Locatable is an interesting new real-estate application to help house hunters find properties to buy in London. The app lets users define a search area by travelling time (by road or rail) from any location.

After defining the area of search users can specify the type of property that they require (price and number of bedrooms). The travelling time area is displayed on the map with an orange polygon. Users can then click anywhere within the polygon to view a list of properties around the chosen location.


mapthatpad is an amazing application that allows you to map real-estate listings from a variety of different online sources. Using the app it is possible to collect and save real-estate listings from a number of different online real-estate sites and create a Google Map of all the properties that you are interested in buying.

Using mapthatpad it is possible to simply cut and paste the url of a real-estate listing from a number of websites, for example Craigslist or the New York Times, and instantly view the listing on a Google Map. If cutting and pasting is too difficult then you can download a bookmarklet that allows you to simply press a button on a real-estate listing to view a Google Map of its location.

Registered users of mapthatpad can add real-estate listings from a number of different websites and save their map for later reference. mapthatpad works with Craigslist, the New York Times real-estate listings, oodle, Street Easy, Rent Easy, Urban Edge and RDNY. It is also possible to add listings from other websites by adding them manually to the map.