What's Happening on Google Maps?

Banjo is a mobile social networking application for the iPhone and Android phones that helps you connect with the people around any location.



When you open the Banjo app on your phone you can immediately see who is around you, no matter what social network you belong to. Banjo shows you Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, TwitPic and Instagram updates from everyone who is nearby.



A really nice feature of Banjo is that you aren't restricted to just your current location. With Banjo you can view social networking updates from anywhere in the world. This means that if there is a big festival happening on the other side of the world, or a huge breaking news story occuring in another city you can open Banjo and view all the latest real-time social networking updates from that location.



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Don't be Shy on Google Maps

Shy Breaker

Shy Breaker wants to help you overcome your normal reticence and meet other people through the Shy Breaker desktop and iPhone application.

Using Shy Breaker users can drop a note on a Google Map. The note can be about someone you've spotted and would like to meet or it could just be a note to say you would like to meet other like minded individuals. Users can time-stamp their notes so that they only appear on the map for a specified period of time.

If other people want to respond to your note they can reply to it and start a private conversation using the application's messaging system. I guess the rest is then up to you ...

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Social Network - The Google Map

Xuland

Xuland is a Google Maps based social network that lets you share comments, pictures and links with those around you and search for venues, events and deals around your location.

Using Xuland you can comment on any location. If you like the comments of other Xuland users you can choose to 'follow' them. Xuland also has plans to offer comment badges soon to reward you for adding your thoughts.

You can also view nearby venues from Yelp, view deals for local venues from third party sites such as Groupon, and search for local events from Eventful.

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Arrange to Meet with Google Maps

Seetio

Seetio is a new Google Maps based social network. 'Seetio' in Spanish is a homophone for 'sitio' which means 'place' and with this new social network you can save your favourite venues and arrange to meet at venues with your friends.

Seetio allows users to create collaborative events at any venue. Users can add Seetios or venues to Seetio by clicking on a Google Map and adding the appropriate information.

If you want to arrange to meet friends at a venue all you need to do is select a venue from the map and write a short message. You can then select which of your friends you want to invite or whether you want to send an open invitation.

You can log into Seetio with your Facebook account.

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One Degree of Separation on Google Maps

Plyce

Plyce is the latest entrant into the location-based social network market. It is a market that is currently dominated by the likes of Foursquare, Brightkite and Gowalla.

Plyce uses Google Maps for many of its featured networking options. With Plyce you can find where your friends currently are and see which of your friends are around your current location directly from the in-built Google Map.

Plyce also lets you check for friends you have in common on Facebook with people around your location. So if someone in your immediate vicinity is friends with one of your friends they will show up on your map.

This one degree of separation feature could just be Plyce's unique selling point and certainly could prove to be a great networking tool.

Plyce also lets you check into and save your favourite places, gives you badges and has a weekly ranking table of users.

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Google Maps and Location Sharing

Mappyfriends

Mappyfriends is a location based recommendations network that you can sign into with your Facebook or Twitter account. Using Mappyfriends you can show your friends where you have been and view their recommendations of places to go.

Once you have logged into Mappyfriends if you click on the 'News' link at the bottom of the Google Map you can view all your friends' latest recommendations. The recommended locations are then loaded in the map sidebar.

Clicking on any of the listed locations will zoom the map to a satellite view of the recommended place. You can then rate the location, click the 'I was here' button, or select one of the quick links to find a hotel, book a flight or discover more information about the location.

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Local Knowledge on Google Maps

Askaro

Askaro has a pretty healthy pedigree. It is the new project from Eduardo Manchónwho, co-founder of Panoramio. Askaro is a hyperlocal site, that Manchónwho has set up with Ubaldo Huerta, to try and help people find out more about their neighbourhoods.

The site lets users exchange information where it matters the most, in our neighbourhoods and places of work etc. Users can ask a question in a specific area by placing the question on a Google Map, so that people who live or know the area can give an unbiased and helpful answer.

Askaro combines geolocation, and question and answer reputations, as the basis of its inner workings. Questions are asked, or placed, in a specific area of a city, in order to reach out to the people who live or know the area. Askaro give the analogy of placing a flyer at your local grocery store to reach out to locals.

Answers can be voted as "Good" or "Bad" by anyone, which has the effect of moving them up or down. The question's author can also designate a specific answer as the "Best answer". Best answers turn green and move to the top.

The number of votes and the answers marked as "best answer" are used to calculate the reputation score, which becomes a measure of how valuable each respondent's contributions and answers are. The users with the best reputation in a city can be found in the "Local Heroes" page.

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Community Mapping with Google Maps

HabitMap

HabitatMap was started in 2006 in Brooklyn to document the links between the built environment of New York City neighborhoods and the health and well being of the people who live, work, and play in these neighborhoods. Now the site is open to participants and contributions from around the globe.

HabitMap is a community mapping and social networking website. Getting involved is easy. Simply identify something in your neighborhood that either enhances your quality of life, such as a local farmers market or public park, or is cause for concern, such as a historic building threatened by bulldozers or a contaminated property down the block, and add it to a Google Map.

You can also create your own Google Map highlighting a specific area of interest, embed maps on your website or blog, invite fellow activists to contribute to your maps, and discuss issues and recruit collaborators in the HabitMap forums.

Here are some links to some of HabitMap's featured New York neighborhood Maps,

• Barge NYC’s Garbage
• Solar Powered NYC
• Where Does My Toilet Flush To?

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Google Maps for Anglers

GoFIShn.com

GoFISHn.com is a social media site for anglers and fishing related businesses. All members' posts to the site are geo-tagged and can be accessed via a Google Map.

As well as displaying members' posts it is possible to view fishing related businesses and other entries on the map. GoFISHn.com has a deep database of fishing-related businesses, such as guides and charters, and their locations are displayed on the Google Map.

Other Fishing Maps

• MapThisFish.com - map and share your catches
  
• FlyFishMap - Fly-fishing map
• Fishing in Arizona - fishing spots in Arizona
• East Coast Fishing and Surfing - US east coast surfing and fishing locations.
• MyFishMaps - geotag fish catches with GPS locations
• Fishing Aces - post your favourite fishing spots on Google Maps
• Fishingmap.ru - great locations to go fishing in Russia
• Map your fishing trips - Australian fishing map
• New York Fishing Map - Fishing spots in New York
• 1001 Fishing Spots - US fishing locations
• The Angler's Atlas - Fishing maps for each US state

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Social Networking on Google Maps

Blomap

Blomap is a social network and location sharing website built on top of Google Maps. Registered Blomap members have their own Blomap Space where they can add favourite locations to a personal map. Visitors to Blomap can browse a global map of all the user added locations and the individual blogs.

Members can also post and share reviews, events, photos and audio about their favourite locations and decide to whom they want to share their information. Blomap allows users to filter all the content they post, allowing access to everyone or just friends.

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Google Maps of Places Open Late

Noctur.nl

Noctur.nl is a Google Maps based database of cafes, restaurants and bars that are open late (past 9pm). Currently there are over 36,000 places in the database and the site is growing all the time.

Users can submit their own favourite late-night haunts to the map. The site uses Twitter for authentication and for reviews. On each individual establishment page there is a Twitter textarea where users can tweet from the location and let people know what they thought about it using a short description and a simple rating system.

Major cities in the USA each have their own Google Map. Map markers in the shape of Owls with their eyes open indicate places that are currently open, owls with eyes closed and Z's above their head indicate places that are closed.

Nocturn.nl also has mobile support and support for iPhone geolocation. The site is currently US only but there are plans to expand coverage throughout the world.

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Share Your Location with Google Maps

ImWaitingHere


I’m Waiting Here is a Google Map based service that you can use to easily point where you are and what are you doing. You can then share this point with your Facebook friends. Using the map you can also see other users' positions and their profiles and communicate with them.

To show where you are you just click on the map at your location and explain what you are doing there. You can then choose to share your point via Facebook. The site also has a number of other features, such as, in site messaging, user profiles, adding friends and photo galleries.

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Introducing the NextStop API

NextStop API

Nextstop is an online travel guide and social recommendation website that makes extensive use of Google Maps. I was very impressed with nextstop when I first reviewed the site back in May.

Here's what I said in the original review,

"There are already a number of well established social recommendation websites out there but the ease of use of nextstop should ensure it becomes a major player in the market. Adding recommendations to nextstop is truly an enjoyable experience, which can't be said of many social recommendation sites."

Nextstop are now opening up all of those user contributed recommendations with the release of an API. There is a lot that developers can do with the API, and nextstop have provided some great API examples. Map developers will probably be most interested in the map example and the guide map example.

I've just spent a couple of hours creating maps with the API and I must say it is one of the easiest API's that I've ever used. I can definitely see myself adding nextstop recommendations to a lot of the maps that I've personally created.

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Sharing Hot Spots with Google Maps

Plarker

Plarker is a social sharing Google Maps based web site. With Plarker it is possible to add your favourite locations to a map,view your friends' maps and even add their saved locations to your map.

Every map created comes with its own unique URL and code to embed the map in your own website or blog. Plarker has a number of suggestions for how you could use the site:

• Create a personal map and share your places with friends
• Setup a corporate account to let people add your business locations to their map
• Create an account for your town and tell others what's cool
• Share your favourite hiking trails
  
• Create an antiquing map and share the hotspots

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Chat With Your Friends from Google Maps

Centrl
Location based social network Centrl, have announced the release of a new web application that introduces the first real-time 'location-based messaging' system. The application can be accessed on-line and through smart phone applications. The release also features a redesigned user interface, profile pages, powerful new map layers, and expanded privacy settings.

Centrl has over 500,000 users and it is very easy to join as you can log-in to Centrl with your Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Bebo, Orkut, Ning or Friendster account. With the new application users can view the location of their friends from Google Maps and chat with them in real-time directly from the map.

The video below gives a good overview of the new features:



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