Geospatial Semantic Web Blog

November 7th, 2006 is the day for the U.S. mid-term election. On this day, people across the country will exercise their rights to vote and choose their representatives. With advanced GIS technology, this year you can view election competitions on digital maps.

1. Election 2006: Competitive House race (from MarketWatch.com)
2. Google Earth Election Map (see it in your Google Earth application)

Additional election coverage can be found on CNN and the U.S. Depeartment of State websites.

BTW, people have dreamed about an election mash-ups a year before. From Copia in Oct. 2005,

With all the talk of Web mash-ups, I wonder whether anyone has any sort of site or tool for overlaying elections district information over mapping services. I suppose one big problem is that there isn’t much commercial prospect for such a service, but surely this would be a prime candidate civic service mashups, funded by government or philanthropies. Another question is whether districting information is available in computer-readable form regular enough for inexpensive implementation of such overlays.

Certain configuration properties in iPhoto 6.0.5 have led to the speculation that iPhoto may soon to support geotags and display photos on Google Maps. This story was first reported on mactelchat.com, and later was submitted to digg.com.

An evidence offered by the iPhoto hacker (javaster) is that in the iPhoto configuration file, the property key “GPSMapURL” is defined with a Google Maps marker display URL. This URL seems to be related to the “Show” button that is part of the Photo Info dialog box in iPhoto (see below).

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Google announced that it will let business to offer discount coupons to people who use its Google Maps service.

A business will be able to upload information for coupons, including images, and Google will display a link to those coupons when the business name is displayed. Users can then print the coupons and take them to the merchant.

This is a smart business move. While an advertising model such AdWords works well for companies that want to increase web site traffics, this model doesn’t necessary meet the needs of local business such as street-corner pizza restaurants and liquor stores. This new combination of Google Maps and coupon advertising should provide additional revenues for Google.

Source: New at Google: Local Coupons, NYTimes

Harry picks mashup applications of the day:

1. Dig to the Other Side: If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop? Pick a spot on the map and it shows you the opposite location on the globe.
2. Brewster Jennings Protects America: The classic game Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego lives on in this interpretation on a Google Map. Race around the globe as a government agent to stop a deadly terror attack.
3. Bush History Map: See George W’s life history plotted on this Google Map.

People can love and hate Google Earth at the same time.

If companies want to put up big advertisement on a billboard down the street, they probably have to pay for it. Thanks to Google’s satellite aerial photo products such as Google Earth and Google Maps. Companies now have a new way to advertise.

Google Earth also reveals a lot of information that governments don’t want you to know. For example, what exactly was going on at Glasgow Prestwick airport the day the Google sat passed over? See “Google Earth fingers CIA rendition flights?“