{"id":67,"date":"2005-03-04T20:25:47","date_gmt":"2005-03-05T00:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/03\/04\/its-a-mapped-mapped-mapped-mapped-"},"modified":"2005-03-04T20:25:47","modified_gmt":"2005-03-05T00:25:47","slug":"its-a-mapped-mapped-mapped-mapped-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/longestnow\/2005\/03\/04\/its-a-mapped-mapped-mapped-mapped-world\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a mapped, mapped, mapped, mapped world"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Lots of good news on the mapping front these days.  After years
\nwith no real improvements to mapquest, yahoo! maps,  et al, there
\nare some new mapping tools gaining attention and server-farms.  <\/p>\n

My favorite at the moment is map24<\/span><\/a>; which does five huge things right:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Clear, intuitive internationalization<\/span>:
    \nfollow the “international” or “choose map” links at the top, to get a
    \nlocalized interface and map (in 12 languages).  As crazy as it sounds, there is NO WAY<\/span> to get to, e.g.,
    \n mapquest.de<\/span> from mapquest.com<\/span>.  \n <\/li>\n
  2. Interactive zooming,<\/span>
    \nletting you choose the rectangle you want to zoom into.  This is a
    \nsexy concept — useful for maximizing the effectiveness of printouts —
    \nand brilliantly executed (it is done smoothly, as if panning in). 
    \nAlso of interest: they dynamically update the location of street and
    \nregion names so that they all fit on your map.  \n <\/li>\n
  3. Highlighting of one-way streets<\/span>. 
    \nFor whatever bizarre reason, many major map companies (Y!, G) still
    \ndon’t do this, and mapquest only offers it at the highest level of
    \nzoom.. \n <\/li>\n
  4. Providing excellent in-map tools<\/span>:  A distance measure<\/span>,
    \nthat both shows you interactive distance-circles around a point, and
    \nlets you plot out a multi-leg path, adding the distances of each leg to
    \nthe map; and a reorient <\/span>yourself<\/span> tool that quickly zooms out and back in.\n <\/li>\n
  5. Allowing you to have a big <\/span>map:
    \none 98% the size of your screen.  Speed is proportional to the
    \nsize of your map is, but this still rocks my geographical location.\n <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \nUnfortunately, map24 isn’t fast; it can take a good half-minute to load
    \ninitially, depending on how well your machine handles its Java
    \napplet.  They offer a static mode which is significantly faster, but still not as fast as the other big map providers.<\/p>\n

    Other amazing mapping services that are steadily improving:  <\/p>\n