• O N L I N E M A P P I N G

Lascaux Cave Map16,500 years old

I-70

44

1996

2012

It's been a fun ride. When I launched the site, Google Maps hadn't yet released the mapping API that's so common — even passé? — today. I can't help but feel like an old-timer: "Back in my day, we had to reverse-engineer Google's obfuscated JavaScript just to get maps embedded on our own sites!" Now it seems like every other Web site finds an excuse to use those familiar, bubbly, yellow-white-blue-pastel map tiles.

Chicagocrime.org wasn't the first Google Maps mashup. That honor belongs to Paul Rademacher's HousingMaps, which, at that time, was modestly titled "Craigslist + Google Maps." The straightforwardness of that original title illustrates the excitement of it all: just the mere fact that somebody had mixed Craigslist data with Google's maps was new and remarkable. - Adrian Holovaty

MAPSMaps have become a familiar part of the news

language online due to a number of

advantages:

• They provide an easy way to grasp a story

at a glance

• They allow users to drill down to relevant

information local to them very quickly

• Maps can be created very easily, and

added to relatively easily by non-

journalists

• Maps draw on structured data, making

them a very useful way to present data

such as schools tables, crime statistics or

petrol prices

• They can be automated, updating in

response to real-time information

NEWS

I designed the Map of the Market while at SmartMoney.com. The goal was to give a quick answer to the question, "what's happening in the market?"

The Map used a variant of the "treemap" technique pioneered by Ben Shneiderman. The screen is divided into rectangular tiles that represent publicly traded companies. The area of a rectangle corresponds to the market capitalization of the company, and the color tells you how the stock price has changed since the previous market close. Unlike a traditional treemap, however, the Map of the Market introduced a new algorithm designed to create tiles that were close to square, making for a display that is more legible and easier to interact with. - Martin Wattenberg