maps

A few weeks ago, I shared a link to the coolest way to visually see what’s news around the world. Now, here comes an interesting way to see what was news. Well, rather, who was covering the news and when in the U.S. It’s a data visualization of newspapers past. And it’s pretty cool, if somewhat depressing.

The Rural West Initiative at Standford University created the map by plotting the U.S. Library of Congress catalog of newspapers (140,000 publications??) over time and space. These are the results (click to see the real maps).

Through the sidebar content as you scroll through the timeline, you get a feel for the different “eras” of newspapering, from the colonies to the frontier to yellow journalism and merger mania. It’s actually somewhat encouraging to read about the journalism crises of decades/centuries past. Being a journalist these days can see like you’re in the worst of times, but really, newspapers and journalism is just constantly evolving, and as you see in the map, it ebbs and it flows.

If nothing else, you’ll find interesting bits of local history when you zoom in and discover who was covering your town. You might be surprised how many newspapers small cities used to support.

(Found via Freakonomics blog.)

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When reporters are in the field with their smartphones and they have a story to tell where both photo and location are vital, a stream of Flickr photos imported into a Google Map will do the trick.

In light of Los Angeles’ recent Carmageddon, above is a geotagged Flickr map of the empty 405 highway.

For example, if you have a reporter covering a huge parade, a bike tour, travelling along the coastline, taking a wine tour across the country, or you want to collect reader photos from a highway closure — really, the use cases are endless — an easy way to get interactive, live content from the field is through a Flickr map. And, you can accomplish it all from email, with no extra apps or training required. Read more

This week a team at Detroit Free-Press continued 13-day, seven-state trek through the midwest to investigate the effects of Asian carp — an invasive fish species whose rate of reproduction and large size make it a threat to the ecosystem of the Great Lakes.

Intersect, the online storytelling tool used by the Free-Press to document the journey, allows users to map videos, photos and text at particular times and locations and see how they “intersect” with other people’s stories from the same time and place. The project so far contains 10 days’ worth of blog posts and photos, all nicely plotted on an Intersect-generated map and timeline, which is embedded alongside a straight, static list of headlines.  Read more

UMapper is a freemium tool for building embeddable online maps and is a favorite among tech-savvy journos. Its unique features make it stand apart from similar mapping tools and its flexibility means it likely has the right function to suit your mapping needs. Here’s some examples of what UMapper can do:

Create a quick embeddable map

UMapper makes it easy and fast to create a map that contains any number of points or markers. You can add text, images, audio, and more to your markers, and add lines and shapes to your map just by clicking on the map and entering some information. You can also batch upload data for multiple markers using UMapper.

Create a Twitter map

UMapper can be used to create a map that displays the latest tweets that contain a selected hashtag or keywords. To do this, create a new map and select the “Twitter search” template found under the Templates tab. Then, in the title of your map, write your headline, followed by a colon, then your search operator. For example, a map with the title “Hawaii: tsunami” and centered on the state would result in the map below.

Create a Map quiz

To mark the recent visit to the U.S. by Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Washington Post created a map that asked people to identify famous Chinese landmarks and locations of recent events. The map was created with UMapper using its “GeoDart Game” template. For instructions on how to create your own, click here.

Display the latest weather

Most major news sites have some sort of weather page or feature, but for those of us who quickly want to show off the weather in any part of the world, UMapper has us covered. Just select “Weather Map” under the Templates tab and center your map on the location you want to display. The resulting map looks like the one below.

For more information on UMapper and its features, visit www.umapper.com.

The technology that is paired with online maps is constantly improving, which means the ways media organizations are using them have become more diverse. Check out a few online maps that are furthering what’s possible with map mashups.

 

Ratio Finder

This eye-catchingly designed map analyzes Foursquare check-ins and visualizes them by gender. Visitors can use the site to compare where male and female users check in and what type of businesses they are most likely to check in to. The site is available for San Francisco and New York.

 

IfItWereMyHome.com

This site allows the visitor to compare the standard of living in the United States to pretty much any other country around the world and see how they differ. For example, If Germany were your home instead of the U.S., you would statistically consume less oil, have fewer babies, and have lots more free time, according to the site. Each page includes a map that shows a scale image of the country overlaid on top of a map of the United States.

 

Home and Away: Iraq and Afghanistan Casualties

Behind CNN’s flashy interactive map is a sobering message: the large number of casualties in the two war-torn countries. The dual maps and accompanying charts show data like the hometowns of the deceased, where they were killed, and when.

 

Products of Slavery

This map of the locations where child labor happens around the world presents a complex issue in a way that is very simple and easy to understand. Site visitors can view the top 25 countries where products are made with child labor and also toggle between the map view and several graph views.

 

MurderMap

Much like the homicide databases produced by the Los Angeles Times and Stamen Design (here and here), MurderMap aims to visualize homicides in London. Visitors can toggle the map by murder weapon and click each marker to view more information about the victim.

 

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block

This New York Times map that displays census data on race in America is most notable for showing just how many neighborhoods are clearly divided by race. For example, Manhattan’s 95th street has mostly White residents on one side and Black and Hispanic residents on the other. Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Boulevard creates a similar divide — a large percentage of residents who live north of the avenue are White, while the majority of those who live south of the street are Hispanic, as evidenced by the colored dots.

 

What’s in a Surname?

National Geographic elevates the word cloud with this map that shows popular surnames by location. “Smith” is a popular last name in most of the country — especially in the eastern United States — while Garcia and Hernandez are popular in the West and Southwest, according to the map.