Cultural Heritage on a Map

The firm AB-C Media, based in Utrecht, works with Museums, Archives, and Cities to make their collections available to the public through interactive databases and map applications. A showcase of the possibilities can be seen with the richly detailed and interactive Amersfoort Map – Amersfoort op de Kaart In addition to Art Work, national and local monuments and archeology, the map has a number of prepared Walking Routes, like the one pictured left. From the detailed information windows, users can also leave comments, or look at the featured item in Google streetview. For Amerersfoort and other projects, the collection can also be viewed on a mobile application, erfgoed.mobi. All in all, a beautifully conceived site!

From Viewbook to ParkLet via Listio

 

This doesn’t have much to do with maps (yet), but what a nice presentation and website design tool!  Viewbook is the creation of a Dutch design company (Resourc Studio), and hit my radar because of their online portfolio for TodaysArt coming up in Den Haag.  Then, searching for reviews of Viewbook resulted in another discovery, Listio.com, a handy (maybe new?) online directory of Web 2.0 applications and services. Another great resource.

And finally, something map-related… searching Listio, found this application, ParkLet, for renting out unused parking spaces in the UK. Seems like a great idea, though not really appropriate on car-free Sunday in Amsterdam.

Update: 27/6/2018: Listio Closed down.  Viewbook expanded and improved.  TodaysArt continues in a different form. ParkLet still going, gussied up.

Map Shot

snap_shot_mapSnap Shots (formerly Snap.com) has launched a new feature with great potential.  They warn that it is still “beta”, and needs to be improved, whatever that means.  (I’ll try it in the next post.)  SnapShots is the free website “plug-in” which puts the little balloon next to all the outside links on my webpage, and if you hadn’t noticed, hover on the balloon and an image of the page linked-to pops up.  These little pop-up windows are irritating to some people… at least some vocal people in the blogsphere say they should be banned.  Maybe they are not all that useful.  However, this new MapShot feature (a fully-functional pop-up Google map), with a built-in “local search” for restaurants, hotels, etc. could be used creatively (think online directories, travel sites, New York Times…). Who is snap.com? Snap Technologies is one of the Idealab companies. Idealab is the renown technology incubator, based in Pasedina CA, founded in 1996, with former fledgelings including PETsMART and Picassa.