maps

Traveling just got a bit more awesome thanks to new technology and tools.

Foursquare and Gowalla have made a big splash when it comes to location-based information and Yelp has revolutionized real-life travel with its online and mobile offerings, but there is even more innovation on the horizon when it comes to travel and journalism. Here are some of the latest offerings that are making the world just a bit smaller.

When it comes to travel do you have Italian tastes but a Branson budget? Thanks to interactive panoramas you can visit exotic locales around the world without leaving your home or office. For example, check out this 360° view of London or this immersive interactive of the Sistine Chapel.

Creating interactive panoramas used to mean trotting out pricey equipment, but now you can create with them with the internal controls built into newer DSLR cameras or using photo stitching software. You can also use mobile apps like the recently released 360 Panorama, available from the iTunes store for 99 cents.

If you’re more interested in fine art than the locales that contain them, you can view artwork up close and personal via similar technology. Halta Definizione allows you to view famous works like DaVinci’s The Last Supper or Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in an interactive environment that allows you to zoom in to the tiniest detail.

A similar effect can be created using tools like Zoom.it which lets anybody embed high-resolution images that have similar zoom and pan controls.

Reinventing the travel experience isn’t limited to fine art: a new crop of apps and websites let you view the history all around you. The Museum of London’s Streetmuseum app pins historic photos onto the real life locations where they were taken. The app uses augmented reality to layer the photos on top of the image seen through the iPhone camera.

Historypin is taking a similar approach by inviting users to add historic photos to an interactive Google map. The result is almost 30,000 photos and stories that can be browsed by anyone.

Slate proved back in 2005 that podcasts could be much more than audio news stories with its Unauthorized Audio Tours of New York City museums. Instead of listening to the prepackaged audio tour provided by many museums, you can instead listen to culture critic Lee Siegel describe and comment on the museum’s offerings. The idea is still relatively untapped among newsrooms, despite its incredible simplicity.

A more recent trend among museums, tour guides, and other non-journalism outfits is to produce their own mobile apps that act as an official guide to a single or various points of interest. The Museum of Natural History in New York, for example, offers an app that includes GPS tracking, detailed information on exhibits, and bookmarking features.

If the various predictions are correct (and they are), we will not only see a growth in mobile applied to journalism, but also travel journalism in particular.

If you’re looking for additional ways to make your travel plans fun, easier, or more interesting, check out this list of ten smartphone travel apps.

Journalism classes and schools, like professional newsrooms, have the opportunity to create large-scale multimedia projects that are the product of a collaboration between participants. These projects focus on a single subject or issue and tell one story in multiple ways.

The label “student journalist” for some may conjure up images of second-rate work that is not ready for prime time. However, the projects below show just how great the multimedia journalism produced by J-schools students are and the potential student groups have to create interesting, vibrant, and diverse multimedia news stories.

1. Hunger in the Golden State

A project of the USC Annenberg School for Journalism & Communication and California Watch, Hunger in the Golden State explores the problem of food scarcity and waste among California residents and what’s being done about it. The humanity of the stories included on the site is augmented by the different ways they are told: the site includes print stories, slideshows, radio broadcasts, and social media components.

2. BARThood

Students at UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism tell the stories of the patrons of BART — the San Francisco Bay Area transit system — in this comprehensive online news package. Among the text stories and slideshows that are common to this type of project, is an interesting data component for each BART station. A stylish data visualization appears on each page that illustrates statistics like the ethnicity and income level of riders and mode of transportation to the station.

3. Greening the Grid

Greening the Grid, a 2009 project of the students of the University of Miami School of Communication (look for online journalism titan Greg Linch among its participants), documents sustainable energy projects in the Czech Republic and the United States. Among the individual stories is this video that illustrates a farm powered by cow manure and this one documenting a 1981 Mercedes Benz powered by discarded vegetable oil.

4. Streets of Dreams: People and Places of Downtown Phoenix

The students of ASU’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications encourage you to follow along as they explore the passions of the residents of Phoenix, Arizona and the city they call home. The story of several Phoenix neighborhoods and the unique people who live there are illustrated by video, photo, and text stories.

5. Multimedia Standards

Unlike the previously mentioned projects, Multimedia Standards, also produced by University of Miami students focuses on the craft of journalism itself. Participants questioned leaders in online/digital journalism about the state of the industry and presented the recorded answers in an easily navigable grid. The site also includes a useful “Resources” page with links to RSS feeds to some of the top journalism blogs on the web.

6. Powering a Nation: The Truth About Energy

News21, a collaborative initiative of several universities across the United States, produces several outstanding multimedia projects every year. UNC Chapel Hill’s “Powering a Nation” is one of several standouts and tackles the issue of energy in the United States. Like other News21 projects, the site features print stories, interactive elements, and more. The students pushed the story even further by creating interactive news games that invite readers to solve real problems like balancing carbon emissions and energy use.

 
Also on 10,000 Words:

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With hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil being pumped into the waters just off the Louisiana coast, the first questions many ask is exactly how much is oil is in the water and how far is it spreading. Several news organizations aimed to answer those questions with interactive, multimedia packages that not only show the spread and threat of the spill, but the potential damage it can cause to the environment and nearby ecosystems.

USA Today, like many other news media, created a Flash-based interactive graphic for which the viewer the viewer can use a slider to view the timeline of the spill. The interactivity is complemented by various level of information, including existing barriers and satellite imagery.

The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, and the Times-Picayune each took a similar approach to visualizing the oil spill, using an interactive map and graphics indicating the size of the spill over time.

The (UK) Guardian not only includes a map of the spill in its presentation, but also incorporates photos of the wildlife that will likely be affected. Various images of ducks, whales, and turtles can be viewed by clicking on the camera icons.

The Associated Press also includes photos in its multimedia explanation of the threat. The AP interactive includes a photo slideshow of the downed rig and various other heart-stopping photos, as well as an interactive timeline of major oil rig accidents, dating back to the 1960s.

Currently the oil spill is still spreading out of control so it is safe to say that many of the above interactives will require continual updating. It will be interesting to see how the aforementioned news media will stay abreast of an ongoing problem and keep their projects fresh with the latest information available.

Also on 10,000 Words:

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There’s a reason why many online news sites have created and featured interactive maps: a map is like a blank canvas on which the artist, or journalist in this case, can lay out a story. The New York Times is one such newsroom using online and interactive maps to tell stories. Even though each of the maps below feature some sort of location, each of the stories they tell is wildly different.

While it’s true that The Times has a wealth of resources and staff that many other newsrooms to do not have, these maps transcend technology and this form of interactive storytelling can be replicated by any newsroom.

1. A Peek Into Netflix Queues

The Times examines the most popular Netflix rentals in major cities across the U.S.

2. New York City Homicide Map

A visual database of the 3,700 homicides that occurred in New York City between 2003 and 2009.

3. A 200-Year-Old Tour of Gastronomic Paris

Photos and an interactive map are combined to create an interactive slideshow of various food-related hot spots in the French city.

4. Immigration and Jobs: Where U.S. Workers Come From

A combination bubble chart/map that shows both the location where foreign-born workers come from and the industries they occupy.

5. Food Stamp Usage Across the Country

What U.S. counties are using the most food stamps? This detailed interactive map breaks down the numbers county by county.

6. The Destruction in Port-au-Prince

A dynamic map of the post-earthquake devastation of Haiti that combines satellite imagery and interactivity to tell the story of the nation.

7. Walking in Holden’s Footsteps

The travels of “Catcher in the Rye” protagonist Holden Caulfield are linked to real New York City locations.

8. Tracking Swine Flu Cases Worldwide

Reported swine flu cases from around the world are mapped with an accompanying map for North America.

9. Geography of a Recession

Another map of U.S. counties, this time used to show which areas are most affected by the current economic recession.

10. Southern California Wildfires

The extent of the damage caused by recent wildfires in California is communicated visually.

11. What’s Cooking on Thanksgiving

What do Americans eat on Thanksgiving? According to this interactive heat map, cranberry sauce is popular in western states and sweet potato pie is popular in the South.

12. Tell Us the Best Places to Go in 2010

The Times invites readers to share their travel plans by adding the name of the location and a written recommendation to other readers.

13. Born in the U.S.A.

Cars manufactured in the U.S. are featured on this map. The project also includes photos and locations of where individual models are produced.

14. Vancouver’s Olympic Venues

A beautiful animated and interactive map of the locations where the 2010 Winter Olympic Games took place.

15. Where the Pies Are

New York City has some of the best pizza in the world. The best pizza places in the city are mapped along with prices, hours of operation, photos and directions.

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As newspapers and magazines shrink and the resources of television and radio stations dwindle, food journalism is often the first section to get the boot. The web, however, presents a unique opportunity to explore food, recipes, and cooking in new and captivating ways.

For example, this past Thanksgiving, The New York Times served up one of its signature interactive projects that visualized what people are eating. The map illustrates what classic holiday dishes are most popular in various sections of the U.S. The Times Online tracked what Britain eats in an interactive infographic that measures the popularity of certain foods over time.

To track the location of local farmers markets, The Washington Post created an interactive online map that readers can use to track local food and produce. If you prefer your vegetables on a burger or burrito, you can also use fastfoodmap.com — an interactive map of the locations of McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, and more — to satisfy your food cravings.

CHOW.com, a site for recipes and other food-related resources, also has a mix of food-related video that teach users to make food and other stuff. In just a few minutes, you can learn to how to fold a wonton, how to prevent an avocado from browning, and how to clean a cast iron pan.

Food journalism and especially recipe guides are ripe for slideshows. BBC News paired photos and audio to explore the wild, yet edible foods found in the British countryside. The Times-Picayune whipped up “12 Dishes Under $12″ a video guide to great dishes from local restaurants. DNAinfo.com, the newly launched hyperlocal site covering the NYC borough of Manhattan, recently presented an interactive slideshow of dishes available during the city’s restaurant week.

Food journalism, as with all news subjects, can be invigorated with a little bit of multimedia and a lot of creativity, which in the end makes the topic more interesting for readers and viewers.

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