AWJ - Google Maps and journalism online

Today we're going to look at how to use maps in your online journalism. Sometimes this is about telling a story in a new way. Sometimes it's about infographics - about getting across information in a clear and engaging way. We're going to look at various examples of online maps and then you're going to work on creating a few Google Maps.

Here are a few links we might look at:

Google Maps and the unofficial Google Maps Mania blog

• 10,000 words on how to make a Google Map in 30 minutes 
• More recent stuff from 10,000 Words - 7 Innovative online maps
• Engadget with a more geeky/demanding guide to creating annotated Google Maps
• Word Herder on using Google Maps in journalism

Here are a few maps and some stories:

• The BBC Berkshire Flood map
• Heron Sightings in Grantham
• The Homicide Report map from the LA Times
• The Crisis Map of Haiti
• The History Pin map
• Nieman Storyboard on maps, charticles and stories
• Dinty Moore's Mr. Plimpton's Revenge
• Travis Fox's Hard Times
• The American Journalism Review on the rise of the charticle

Some of these examples are a bit old now. But they show you some of the things people tried as the ideas of using maps in stories online developed. Now map-based stories are very complex - they blur with timelines and infographics in general and involve some serious programming and Flash animation. Reza will show you a bit of this in class today. You can also find state of the art map stories via the Maps Mania blog mentioned above.