The Google Maps of the Week

In New York joggers love Central Park and the southern tip of Manhattan. In Chicago the lake shore is very popular and in San Francisco the Golden Gate Park and The Embarcardero seem to be the most popular places for joggers.

The Strava Global Heatmap is a really informative Google Map of where joggers like to run and where cyclists love to ride. The map allows you to view the most popular running and cycling routes by Strava users across the world.

The map reveals some interesting differences between the preferences of joggers and cyclists. In London, for example, lunchtime joggers love running along the paths on both banks of the Thames. Cyclists on the other hand prefer to take the roads that run parallel with the river.


There have already seen some amazing applications built with the GSVPanoDepth Street View depth library. HyperlapseMB uses the depth information hidden in Street View data to create a nice motion blur effect to an animated Street View drive and Urban Jungle is a fantastic website that allows you to view Street View scenes enhanced with some virtual jungle greenery. Both of these sites have been created with the undocumented depth data stored in Street View.

Now thanks to GSVPanoDepth and some awesome hacking by Callum Prentice you can step into a 3d version of Street View made up of a point cloud representation of the Street View depth data.

Once immersed in the point cloud representation of Street Cloud you can spin around 360 degrees, look up and down and even view the original Google Maps Street View. After you've checked out the point cloud representation of your house (you know you're going to do it) why not type in '210 W 46th St, New York, United States' to view Times Square (pictured above).


The New York Times has mapped where the fans of America's baseball teams live. The newspaper has taken data from Facebook to create a Google Map that allows you to explore baseball fandom in the USA down to county level.

Using the data of Facebook users who have declared support for a baseball team in their profiles, the New York Times has produced this Map of the Baseball Nation. The result is a map of the United States which replaces the 50 states with a colorful montage of baseball regions.

Zoom in on the map and you can select counties on the map to view the top three teams (and the percentage of fans for each) supported in the clicked county. You can also search the map by zip-code or address to find out who are the most supported baseball teams in your county.