:Journalistopia

Have you ever tried to simulate a Google Maps-style map in Flash? I hope you haven’t because you’d still be waking up screaming in the middle of the night after that experience.

So say hello to the new Google Maps API for Flash. The new API allows Flash developers to integrate Google Maps into their Flash applications. This goes beyond simply embedding SWF files in Google Maps info windows; it’s full-blown integration at a programmatic level.

If you want the nitty gritty of how to get started, check out the Flash API documentation.

I can’t wait to see what creative news designers are going to do with this…

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So you think that Google Maps doohickey you built is really cool? Well, you might have to get your map game to the next level because Google Maps is exploring some seriously interesting data layers for their maps application:

Google filed a patent titled “Dynamic Exploration of Maps” that would let users add easy-to-use templates for specific kinds of data, such as crime indexes, average home prices, average noise levels, schools and user ratings.

So start giving some serious thought about what we news sites can do better or differently. I know I will…

[Hat tip to SEO by the Sea]

[More geojournalism in the Maps category]

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So have you perchance been sitting at your desk pondering what your next great interactive map is going to be? Mike Pegg at the always-excellent Google Maps Mania blog has you covered.

Mike put together a list some time ago of “100 Things to do with Google Maps Mashups“. The ideas here cover calculating taxi fare, finding a public toilet, getting cheap gas and even determining which way to face to pray toward Mecca.

The best part is that much of these ideas use data that your news site probably already collects or that is readily available to the public. Also, don’t rule out the value of soliciting community contributions either…

[100 Things to do with Google Maps mashup]

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Google announced late last night a new feature for Google News that allows users to receive local headlines from their city, state or country of choice.

The feature worked well when I tried it out for Orlando and a few other cities. I’d say this bodes well for small and mid-size publications, since this feature will finally let folks easily find local headlines. Before, Google News was mostly a mishmash of nation and world stories, with online editors hoping to hit on a national story that could get picked up by the aggregator.

However, — *Tap* *Tap* Is this thing on? — WE MUST START GEOCODING STORIES.

Google is starting to do it. EveryBlock is already doing it really well. Topix sorta does it. A few others are doing it too. Groups of engineers have already written scrapes that scan the text of news stories. They’ve written algorithms that detect and process addresses for geocoding. Let’s not re-hash the whole newspapers-are-always-falling-behind speech; just get moving already.

Screenshots of Local Google News at Mashable.

More at TechCrunch about how Topix needs to be very afraid.

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Hey Journalistopia denizens, just a quick heads up that I’ve been updating the Journalistopia Crime Maps Directory with all sorts of great, new stuff ever since it first appeared back in September. News organizations have definitely been embracing crime data in a big way.

So check out the new additions, and keep the submissions rolling! Crime map directory is here.

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Live from the ONA conference in Toronto…

Adrian Holovaty looks at a photo of the world’s ugliest dog and sees 1s and 0s.

Displaying a photo of the hideous animal, Holovaty –the big brain behind ChicagoCrime.org and the Python framework Django– says there are loads of data in the ugly dog image. Who/what is the subject? Who took the photo? Where was it taken? When was it taken? What kind of camera was used? What colors are in the photos?

So how can that image, if tagged with metadata, give your site a big advantage? A good example is Flickr, which allows users to search photos by all sorts of non-traditional criteria. The result is a site that is stickier and allows a high degree of browsability, a trait that users nowadays are beginning to view as essential, Holovaty said.

News organizations have reporters attending city council meetings, high school sports games and covering local crimes — something Google doesn’t or can’t do. But rather than just having reporters gather facts and fuse them into a “blob” that is unreadable by machines (aka, a news story), Holovaty wants to also see news organizations compiling that information into a database format that can be easily browsed by users.

“We have all those killer advantages, but the tragedy is that we haven’t actually leveraged the information we collect,” Holovaty said.

How to get started

Being that crime databases are all the rage these days –no thanks to Holovaty– here is a set of processes and tips to get one rolling:

-Analyze the raw data you get from the police department.

-List the data’s fields (Date, time, crime type, address, etc.)

-Identify the key concepts. If a user clicks on a field, is it useful to that user to see the data sorted by that criteria? For instance, browsing by date ishelpful, but case numbers are unique and not really browseable.

-Make list pages with multiple records that are browseable by a certain criteria.

-Then, make detail pages for individual crimes.

-Every piece of information needs to have a permalink. Linkability/bookmarkability is critical, not just for users but also for search engines. “Your Google juice will go up,” Holovaty said.

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Crime maps of all flavors are the rage nowadays ever since developer/journalist Adrian Holovaty created the now-famous ChicagoCrime.org in May, 2005.

These days, everyone from independent designers to large newspaper companies are creating crime maps, causing severe headaches for police PIOs nationwide. So for all your crime map perusing needs, below is a directory of maps pulled together with tremendous help from the denizens of the Online News Association listserv. If you know of any other neat crime maps, drop a note in the comments. Or if you’re shy, just message me at dansanufATyahoo.com.

Some maps, such as the LA Times’ homicide map, only map killings but go into extraordinary detail for each incident. Others, such as Oakland Crimespotting, pull in a broad range of data. Many of the crime maps –and some of the slickest– were put together by small publications and designers not directly affiliated with news organizations. (NOTE: I did not list online maps created by police agencies.)

You’ll find maps here that have been created using the Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping APIs. You’ll also find maps that are created using anything from Ruby on Rails, Python/Django and PHP to using WYSIWYG tools such as Google My Maps, ZeeMaps and CommunityWalk.

(And on a personal note, please make sure to follow good search engine optimization practices if you build a crime map. Some of these maps are really hard to find without a direct link!)

CRIME MAPS

Auto Crime Map & Alcohol Violations: Minors in Possession Map
Lawrence Journal-World
http://www2.ljworld.com/data/alcohol_violations/mip/
http://www2.ljworld.com/crimes/auto/
And the award for most booze sold to minors in Lawrence, Kansas goes to The Hawk at 1340 Ohio St. See it on a map of venues that got busted selling alochol to minors. And, see a Google Map of auto thefts/burglaries, broken down by item value, car type and more.

Arizona Crime Reports
Arizona Republic
Uses a search-form based interface with the Google API
http://www.azcentral.com/CrimeMaps/

Bakersfield.com Homicide Map
Bakersfield Californian
ZeeMaps-based Google Map of homicides with sidebar and multi-colored points
http://www.bakersfield.com/homicidemap/

Baltimore Homicides in 2007
Baltimore Sun
Google Map of homicides only using dropdowns for navigation
http://essentials.baltimoresun.com/micro_sun/homicides/

Berkeley Ca Crime Log
Unknown
ChicagoCrime.org-style interface with multiple pages of Google Maps
http://berkeleyca.crimelog.org

Bloodhound
Northwest Florida Daily News
Google Map with color-coded markers, filtering options and text from police reports
http://www.nwfdailynews.com/crimemap

ChicagoCrime.org
Adrian Holovaty
The original gangsta that started it all
http://chicagocrime.org/

Crime Watch Newport News
Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)
Searchable database and interactive map with way cool tag cloud features
http://dailypress2.com/crime/nn/

Duval County Homicide Data Search
Florida Times-Union
Uses a search-form based interface with the Yahoo Maps API. Maps homicide data only
http://www.jacksonville.com/databases/news/homicides/index.shtml

EveryBlock
Adrian Holovaty and company
Another Holovaty production, this time including highly browseable crime data, inspections, news stories and much more about Chicago, San Francisco and New York.
http://www.everyblock.com/

FresnoBee.com Crime Map
Frenso Bee
Google Map with multi-colored points and a polished interface
http://www.fresnobee.com/static/crime/

Grand Rapids, Michigan Crime Map
John Winkelman
Google Map of crime incidents in Grand Rapids, Michigan created via XML file
http://crime.eccesignum.org/

Houston Crime Maps
Unknown
ChicagoCrime.org-style interface with multiple pages of Google Maps
http://houstoncrimemaps.com

Indy 911 Calls
Indianapolis Star
Yahoo Map of recent 911 calls with description abbreviations and nice police badge icons
http://indy911calls.com

Copenhagen Police Crime Mashup
Døgnrapporten, København
Uses a 100% width and height and overlays the map tools onto the map for a nice visual effect.
http://www.dognrapporten.dk/

LakelandLocal.com Crime Map
Lakeland Local, using CommunityWalk
Weekly links to CommunityWalk Google maps with unique icons
http://lakelandlocal.com/archives/crime_map/

LA Times.com The Homicide Map, Lost Angeles County victims
Los Angeles Times
An intensely statistical look at homicide information in Los Angeles complete with photos and short bios about many of the victims
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/homicidemap/

Misdaadkaart.nl
A series of searchable Google Maps using slick icons
http://www.misdaadkaart.nl/

Monitor Cuidadano
Lavoz.com.ar
Interactive crime map of the city of Corboda, Argentina (in Spanish) done using Flash
http://monitor.lavoz.com.ar/

New Haven Crime Log
New Haven Independent
Drills down deep into crime categories with multiple Google Maps, a color-based severity scale and an hour-by-hour time slider
http://www.newhavencrimelog.org/

Oakland Crimespotting
Stamen Design
A slickly designed map using Microsoft Virtual Earth, featuring a chronological slider and e-mail alerts http://oakland.crimespotting.org/

Orlando Crime Map
Orlando Sentinel
Crime map of Orlando incidents, updated weekly, with two ways to search: via Google Map menu or via ChicagoCrime.org-style browsing.
http://www.orlandosentinel2.com/data/crime/
PhillyCrime.org
Joshua B. Plotkin with Amir Karger
Uses data from the Philadelphia Inquirer to map searchable data from 2006 and 1996
http://www.phillycrime.org/

RichmondCrime.org
PharrOut
Uses search forms to navigate a series of Google Maps; also has an interesting crime graph generator http://richmondcrime.org/

Spec’s Police Blotter
Hamilton Spectator
A weekly Google My Maps map of the Spectator’s police blotter
Blotter Link (Click The Spec’s Police Blotter” link under “What’s Hot” at http://www.thespec.com/)

Springfield (Ore.) crime map
The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.
Google Map with hand-edited incident descriptions covering the previous week
http://projects.registerguard.com:8080/springfield/crime-map/

TBO Crime Tracker
Tampa Tribune
A map of law enforcement calls using a Django-based back end
http://data.tbo.com/crime/

Toronto Marijuana Grow Operations & Homicides Since 2005
Toronto Star
Two Google Map-based plotting killings and marijuana houses with some custom Javascript in the sidebar.
http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps.html?xml=growops.xml
http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps.html?xml=homicides.xml

***

More geotopia in the Maps category. More lists and tutorials in the Journalistopia Tutorials category.

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Below is a roundup of links to interesting infographics, maps, databases and other types of interactive coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Also, IRE has an excellent set of bridge-related resources.

(NOTE: I’ve updated the list a few times with more links from people who’ve written in; many thanks.)

New York Times
Interactive graphic with step-by-step look at how the collapse occurred

USAToday
Map of the collapse site and a historical look at other major bridge collapses

Washington Post
Interactive graphic analyzing each portion of the destruction

St. Paul Pioneer Press
Community-contributed photos | Audio slideshow

Miami Herald
Interactive mashup map of South Florida bridges in poor condition

Palm Beach Post
Searchable database of Florida bridges

Cleveland Plain-Dealer
Interactive map of state showing deficient bridges by county | Searchable database of all Ohio bridges | Interactive state-by-state map of U.S. showing deficient bridges

Des Moines Register
Searchable database of Iowa bridges

Orlando Sentinel
Interactive mashup map of Central Florida bridges in poor condition

The Oregonian
Interactive mashup map of structurally deficient bridges in Oregon

St. Petersburg Times
Flash graphic with map, statistics and bridge construction graphics

MSNBC
Interactive Flash map of state-by-state deficient bridge tallies

Wikipedia
Community-edited article about the bridge

Legacy.com
Guest book for Minneapolis bridge victims

Florida Today
GIS-based map of all Brevard County bridges

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Thank you, o Google Maps team for adding informal neighborhoods to the Maps search function. And thanks for apparently adding little ol’ Orlando (which, most regretfully, was snubbed when adding 3D-esque views for buildings).

The search function passes the preliminary smell test for Orlando, which has more dang neighborhoods than you can shake a stick at. However, the search does seem to occasionally have issues with neighborhoods that contain streets of a similar name (such as Baldwin Park and Baldwin Park Street). Nevertheless, it’s a great addition to the ever-growing map endeavor.

And for all you Mercatans, visit the Maps category for more fun stuff.

[Via Google LatLong]

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Google announced today a new blog called Google LatLong dedicated to providing updates on their Maps, Earth and Local services.

“As web mapping (dare I say “the geoweb”?) matures, we’re finding that we have a lot more to communicate about new developments in Earth, Maps, Local, and our APIs,” writes Google Maps/Earth director John Hanke. “Our goal is to help foster the ecosystem of geo development across the web.”

If you’re interested in creating Google Maps from scratch, make sure to follow this blog. Google’s engineers are making the API easier and more flexible to use every day. No word yet on whether the Google Maps API Blog will soldier on.

Lastly, make sure to check out the Google Maps Mania blog, THE best source for cutting-edge map ideas (such as the ridiculously cool ‘24′ Jack Bauer tracker).

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[Photo by VJL]

Mindy McAdams tells the tale of a student who recently came in wanting to become an independent video journalist. The problem: She doesn’t know a lick of HTML.

See her advice to the student.

Some like to take the tack of sitting down with a book and going chapter-by-chapter. Well, feguddaboutit. If you want to learn HTML/CSS, Flash, databases or any other technology, you have to set a project goal for yourself:

-I want to shoot a video about a local character and upload it to a blog.

-I want to start a blog about college baseball.

-I want to make a Google Maps mashup of local Indian restaurants by hand.

-I want to display the results of a database of politicians on the Web.

-I want to make a Soundslide about the local dog park.

Take that goal, and then use that book selectively to find the skills you need to accomplish what you want to do. If not, it’s like trying to memorize the user manual of a video camera instead of just running around filming interesting stuff.

If you try to swallow that whole book in one shot, there’s a good chance you’ll kill your enthusiasm and never learn.

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