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location-based technology + journalism

The easy way to make any map interactive

By Satta Sarmah

For many locative journalists, maps are the most efficient tool to tell a location-based story. Over the past 10 weeks, Team LoJo has relied on maps, GPS devices and other tools to tell our Chicago 2016 locative story.

We followed the lead of other news organizations, such as the Bakersfield Californian and The New York Times, which mostly rely on Google Maps for locative stories.

While that mapping platform has great capabilities, a quick Web search revealed other mapping tools that multimedia journalists should know about.

MapsAlive, an application used to create interactive maps and floor plans, gives journalists, real estate professionals and tourism businesses the ability to make any ordinary map interactive. It’s been used in various ways, from creating interactive directories of stores in a mall to virtual tours of national parks and as an interactive illustration of a crime scene.

Vermont-based company AvantLogic created MapsAlive in 2007 and says it wants the technology to be “the premier tool for creating online interactive map tours.” Interactive map tours are basically multimedia presentations containing information, images and text associated with particular locations.

AvantLogic says anyone with basic computer skills can create an interactive map tour on its Web site. Users must upload their own photos and maps (such as scans of print maps or maps found online). Then, they drag markers onto certain points within the map. Hit the publish button and MapsAlive will create an interactive map tour to your liking.

The cost to create these maps is free. However, MapsAlive charges $39 a year for a premium membership, which allows members to download the interactive maps to their computers or servers.

It seems much easier than creating an interactive map in a program like Adobe Flash, which requires some programming skills in order to write ActionScript.

MapsAlive has also made itself more competitive with other mapping platforms by releasing a second version, which allows users to input video and Flash movies , display data from an information database in real time, and create a categorized directory of locations on their interactive map tours.

Saturday, June 7th, 2008 Filed under Interactive maps, Locative storytelling |