MapOfStrange News - News from the MapOfStrange

The Google Maps streetview has recently been added into the Google Maps API. This is great - it allows you to view street-level shots in various cities around the US. We’ve put together a lightweight interface to this on the site. It’s very much a ‘beta version’ at the moment, but it does have some decent functionality, and this will be improving all the time over the next few months.

There aren’t many records at the moment, and it’s just based in New York, so please help us by adding as many records as you want. At the moment all new submissions will be added - but these will be vetted over the course of the next few weeks, until a point that there is sufficient good quality content to remove the crap. At that point, new submissions will be subject to validation.

It is very much work in progress, so if you have any questions or suggestions, please send me an email - paul@mapofstrange.com. Thanks.

The site is now up-to-date, and as such new submissions have been reinstated. A backlog of nearly 5,000 records had built up and it was just too much to cope with, but we’ve whittled these down to the best. And in the meantime, we’ve reinstated the ratings system - click on the tick to show that you like it, and the cross to show that you don’t like it. You can also order the listings by the top rated entries.

Thanks for being patient with us, and we hope you like the new entries, and the new functionality!

We’ve got a huge backlog of new records in the database, so unfortunately, we’ve had to disable submissions (temporarilly). What this means is that nobody will be able to add anything for the foreseeable future.

Sorry that we’ve done this - we’ve kind of been forced into it due to high demand. A backlog of about 5,000 records has built up and it’s just too much to cope with. More than 100 new records are added every day. This would be OK if they were good, but at least 99% of these are just rubbish…  It shouldn’t take too long to clear the backlog, and when it is cleared, we’ll let you know and reinstate submissions.

Due to the number of poor records that get added, all submissions are subject to verification.  This is a lengthy process as we want to ensure the quality of records in the site is high, and that we don’t duplicate entries, so please bear with us, and again I’d like to plea to everyone who is adding things not to add anything that isn’t going to be of interest to others.

The backlog has been created by the increasing number of visitors are looking at mapofstrange.com, which in turn has resulted in an increasingly large number of new records being added.  This is great.  However, it does mean that we’re getting lots more people telling us where they live, and where Brazil or India or Spain is.  Thanks very much for your help, it’s reassuring to know that elementary geography is still being taught in schools, and that the money and time invested by the Google corporation to produce Google maps and Google earth isn’t going to waste. 

However, we really aren’t interested. 

Seriously. 

We couldn’t give a damn that you know the whereabouts of New York.  And, again, you might be surprised that nobody wants to know where you live, but hey, we don’t!  But if you’ve seen something interesting (a WWII bomber in Northern Italy), unusual (a car flying through the air), or stupid (a giant penis painted on the roof of a school), we really want to hear from you.  Thanks to all those who have added something recently.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.

The website has been down a lot recently. I suppose we’ve been a victim of our own success - it was because we’ve been getting lots more traffic than we ever expected (sorry for any inconvenience, and thanks for your support). We’ve been on Digg.com, we’ve been stumbled, and we’ve even been on German TV, and as such we’ve ended up taking up too much of the CPU on our host’s servers. And we’ve done that lots of times. 

But we’ve moved to a new server. This one is a VPS, so it should (we’ll keep our fingers crossed) stay up (although it’s already been taken down once for hitting the database too frequently). The VPS does mean, however, that we can add a load more functionality - so watch this space. We’ve already reintroduced comments and ratings, and we’ll be bringing back the search fairly soon.  We’re also going to add the ability to search in a particular area.  All that is coming soon, and if you have any other suggestions, we’d love to hear them - paul@mapofstrange.com with your suggestions.

Google have released a new API for Google Maps.  This is really different - it doesn’t require Javascript - it’s static.  Simply pass some parameters to a URL and it returns a gif image of the location in question.  For more information read their blog entry - http://googlemapsapi.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-maps-without-scripting.html.

The way mapofstrange.com works is designed to be interactive, so I can’t see me replacing the entire feel with this non-Javascript method, but it still  might have some really useful application at mapofstrange.com.  If we don’t need Javascript, it could be a good way of providing a mobile service.    Or I could have an ‘add this to your webpage’ link which generates the code to display an image. 

 At present it only shows map-level images and not satellite imagery, which means that it isn’t right for mapofstrange.com (at least not yet).  It’s definitely something I’m going to keep my eye on though… 

It is incredibly easy to setup - there is even a wizard - http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/simplewizard/makestaticmap.html.  Just do a search for the location, choose the zoom level and the size of the map, and it generates the map for you.  At the moment there is a maximum of 1000 page views per person (not per image or per key) per day, which is ample, but I expect that this will increase over time. 

 Here’s an example of it in action (click on it to open the map) -

Altogether, I think it’s an excellent addition to the Google Maps API - I only wish it would show satellite images as well!