Google Flu Activity Tracking: Fears versus Symptoms

A genius at Google noticed you could map flu outbreaks quite early because of searches people do about flu symptoms and related terms.  Here is the graph of flu activity so far for this year.  Because of the swine flu, people are a bit more keyed up about flu and are search more, as shown in the graph. That’s one theory.  Or, there is going to be a big outbreak.  Are the searches based on symptoms, as the likely were in the past, or are they about fear because of the new strain?

Google Maps

Google Maps

I don’t know when this happened, but now I noticed Google Maps allows the same thing as many of the third party sites I have been reviewing in terms of making one’s own custom maps. Google maps allows annotations, shapes, lines, embedded photos and videos, and just about everything you need. Plus the scroll zoom and dragging functions are there (two of the best things about gmaps). This will make it easy to create an assignment or project out of this newish mapping technology.

Update: I don’t think Gmaps allows you to have teams edit a map. You can just save your own maps and let others see them. Communty Walk is back on top then.

Test Map for CommunityWalk

Test Map for CW: Restaurants – CommunityWalk

I like Community Walk more than the rest on the whole but each one has its strengths. One issue: When you draw on a map, which is not allowed in many of these services, it just shows your line and doesn’t go around buildings or follow any sort of natural path; none of the services seem to have addressed this and it may be too difficult to fix. As you can see on this one, the last part of the path is straight through another building. If you want to draw a route and indicate distance, you need to know the distance already (perhaps from Gmaps Pedometer). Community Walk allows for importing spreadsheets to create map points, but this is a little tricky at first. I made one with our newly admitted students’ zip codes and got a nice representation of our geographic range. This service uses advertising to make money.

GeoJoey

GeoJoey Example

I tried out GeoJoey and it’s pretty cool. It allows routes, all kinds of extra info (including tags), and also drawing on the maps. It’s organizing metaphor may get in the way of initial usability, but at least it has an organizing metaphor. It probably is as useful as Platial as far as networking and commenting. The fact that it’s a blog allows it to deal with time a little more effectively. You can call a series of points a “journey” and it has the option of making your most recent entry the focus when someone visits your blog page. I don’t like having too many blogs, so I just think of it as my maps. I think this application stands out because of the number of features. Side note: this kind of thing can have a wide range of applications, from orienting someone to important locations in a community to sharing one’s favorite bicycling routes. I am nearly committed to implementing one of these tools as a requirement in a writing class.

Update: GeoJoey doesn’t seem to have spreadsheet importing for map pointers. That would be pretty important. I also would like to see the ability to edit icons.

Comments on Platial

Platial.com

Okay, this one seems pretty easy to use and it does integrate with this WordPress blog (see sidebar). It doesn’t seem to have routes, but it seems easy to add pics and whatnot. I’m not sure what the blog integration does for me except make my blog longer to load, but I’ll keep playing. Once you make an icon, it doesn’t seem possible to move it by dragging it around. Commenting and networking features may be better here, but I’m still going to take a closer look at Community Walk.

Gmaps Pedometer; best for biking or walking routes??

Gmaps Pedometer Example (bike route)

I see that many free map services don’t allow you to put routes in. Community Walk is one exception. Also, this Gmaps Pedometer site is pretty simple. It will let you save a map with a route in it and give you the URL. The one I put here is a simple loop route I like to ride near my house. My odometer says this route is a bit longer than indicated on the map. I don’t know how it’s supposed to useful for counting calories when it forces an as-the-crow-flies route construction method. Then again, why would someone care; just get out there and burn some.. I don’t know if routes are important for using mapping as a potential writing or other assignment in a class, but they are pretty key for walking, hiking, and biking.

Mapbuilder for Map Mashups

Google map mashups are easier to make than you might think. I took about an hour to get going on my first one, a simple list of mountain biking trails. It could be a neat activity or assignment for a writing class, design class, or something similar.

Mountain Biking Trails in Mid Michigan (example)

I used Mapbuilder for this one. I plan to try Platial next.

Update, Apr 3: This one has several good options for publishing your map, but seems to lack a capacity for including routes. I’m not dismissing it yet. Update again: I think this is a contender. It seems to avoid the ads problem, trying to make money by selling premium services to real estate folks.