Even More Russian Street View

Gdeetotdom

Gdeeetotdom is a Russian website that uses Google Maps as a means to navigate its 'street view' type interactive panoramic images and to display photographs of houses. The site has imagery coverage for a large part of Moscow and several other cities.

The interactive panoramas work in much the same way as Google's Street View with interactive arrows within each panorama that are used to navigate to the adjacent image. Each still photograph on the map contains a link to a description of that house and links to real-estate adverts for each house.

NORC

NORC uses Google Maps as the means to navigate around the 'street view' type panoramas. Unfortunately NORC does not have links within each panorama, so you can't use arrows to jump to the adjacent image. Instead you have to drag the map marker to the location you want to view.

NORC also doesn't seem to have quite as much coverage in Moscow as Yandex. However it does have some stunning panoramas of Russia's capital.

Yandex - Russian Street View

Russian search engine Yandex have added Street View type functionality to their online mapping service. At the moment the imagery seems confined to Moscow but it does appear that the whole city is covered.

Here are some direct links to some Yandex street views in Moscow:

• Bolshoi Theatre
• Entrance to Moscow Zoo
• Ostankino Tower
• The Kremlin

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Discount Hotel Booking on Google Maps

Cheaphotels.ie

This Google Maps mashup shows the locations of 66,000 Hotels in 168 countries. It is possible to search for a hotel and make a reservation directly from the website.

To search for a hotel just enter your chosen destination and the dates you wish to travel. Alternatively you can use the Google Map to zoom in on a location and select a hotel from those displayed.

Cheaphotels.ie also use Bing Maps when you select the 'map' option from the returned list of hotels after you undertake a search.

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Friday Fun with Google Maps

Set Your Google Maps Search Free
A number of Googlers have started a website called Data Liberation, with the aim of letting users retrieve some of their data stored by Google. Amongst other things, the site lets you retrieve up to 100 of your last searches on Google Maps as a KML file. It also explains how to export your MyMaps as a KML file.

Tweets Around the World
This visualisation shows about 11,000 ‘good morning’ tweets over a 24 hour period. The tweets are colour-coded: green blocks are early tweets, orange ones are around 9am, and red tweets are later in the morning.

GoodMorning! Full Render #2

XKCD
Again this week I struggled to find any Friday Fun directly related to Google Maps. Thank heaven then for xkcd, who can always be relied on for a little geo-fun.

Cheap GPS


If you want to know what cheap GPS would be really like then try out this little game I've been working on - Where's Waldo (now with Where's Paddington and Where's Dino added goodness).

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Amazing Drive Sharing Google Map

Nation of Go
Nation of Go is a very impressive Google Maps based social sharing site for those who love to drive. Using the site it is is possible to share your favourite drives, explore drives added by others, follow other drivers or groups, add photos and videos and create groups and events.

The video below shows just a few of these features,



The trail mapping engine for Nation of Go was developed by Google Maps Mania favourites EveryTrail. The site has apps for the iPhone and Blackberry. The mobile apps can plot your movements, so you can create Nation of Go maps and take geotagged photos along any trail, track or road. Then, when you are finished, you can upload them directly to your driver profile.

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National Geographic Goes Google

TOPO! Explorer

National Geographic are using the Google Maps API to display their own custom map tiles. Using the Google Maps API enables National Geographic to present a seamless interface for their excellent topographic maps of the entire USA and for their social sharing network of uploaded trails.

National Geographic's TOPO! Maps include satellite views, shaded relief maps, and hybrid maps, combining the satellite view with geographical information. Registered users of the site can explore the 1,989 trips, 1,090,850 miles of trails, 191,715 waypoints and 1,282 photos uploaded to the site by other users. They can also upload their own trails, photos and videos.

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Real Estate Tweets on a Google Map

Homezilla

Canadian real estate website Homezilla have created a 'TweetLens' on Canadian real estate. The 'TweetLens' is a Google Map showing you the most recent 20 real estate related tweets made in Canada or for any location in the country.

You can choose to view Tweets for a specific location by using the built in search option or you can choose major Canadian cities from a drop down menu.

Tweets are shown on the map with map markers and also appear under the map. If you roll your mouse under any of the Tweets below the map the corresponding Tweet will be shown on the map. If you choose the 'auto update' option the map automatically updates the Tweets every minute.

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Toxic Water Polluters on Google Maps

NY Times Toxic Waters Map

The New York Times has compiled data on more than 200,000 facilities that have permits to discharge pollutants and have collected responses from states regarding compliance. The paper has made all of this data available via a very cool Google Maps mashup.

It is possible to search the map by city or zip code or by selecting a state. Violations are shown on the map by small orange map markers. When you roll over the markers an information window opens with the violation details.

Facilities are also listed below the map, with information about their last inspection and the number of violations of the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Also See

• MapEcos - Another map of the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) dataset from the EPA.
• American towns damaged by toxic waste - Google Maps and YouTube videos.. created by The Center for Public Integrity.
• Toxic Risk -map showing all of the US states based on the EPA Toxic Release Inventory
  

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