Today we're out exploring some of the many maps of the Internet, websites, virtual worlds, and spatializations of non spatial data. This is just a small sample of what is out there. For more cool maps see Martin Dodge's Atlas of Cyberspace. I found many of the maps below through his site.

Post your answers on your web site. Due next Thursday. You should have enough time to get it done today but I also encourage you to take your time. There are quite a few things to play with on this virtual field trip so feel free to play with and explore the sites below.

Maps Made Using Data from the Internet

One of the most interesting intersections of mapping and cyberspace is the use of data mined from the Internet to understand our world.  Floatingsheep.org is attempting to do that using placemarks from Google Maps to create a variety of maps.  If you haven't already go to Floatingsheep.org and browse some of the maps.  Then go to their Metropolitan Cyberscapes entry. 

1.  What do these maps say about our ability to use the Internet to learn more about what is going on in our world?

Floatingsheep.org has also produced some other maps.  One example is their map of Wikipedia entries referencing places.  Take a look at the maps they have produced.

2.  What do these maps say about the geography of the Internet?

3.  What do these maps suggest about the biases that can emerge in projects like Wikipedia which rely upon "crowdsourcing", or the use of volunteer users to create content?

Mapping Twitter

4.  Check out Trendsmap which shows trends on Twitter by their location. Zoom in on a particular location, perhaps Chicago or Anchorage.  What location have you chosen and what is a trending topic in that location?

Spatializations for Browsing the Web

This may be an idea whose time is not quite here.  Most early experimental examples seem to have disappeared but are documented on Three Dimensional Info-Spaces page of the Atlas of Cyberspace which is our next stop. These are spatializations that are meant to aid in navigation through information or the web itself.

5.  Browse through the examples found on this page.  Which of them stand out to you?  Which do you think might offer the most promise as a way to navigate complex information? 

6.  Is the idea of creating spatializations for navigating the web something whose time is not quite here but will be the way we navigate the web in the future or is it an interesting idea that is just not practical or useful?

Interactive Web Site/Directory/Idea Maps

This kind of map is similar to the spatializations above, but they are more limited to specific web sites or for organizing and linking documents, information, and ideas. Go to The Brain web site. At the top of the page is an interactive map of the web site. You navigate to various pages on the website by clicking on the text on the brain interface. Play around with it a little bit until you get used to using it.

7.  What advantages do you see for navigating a web site this way?  Are there any disadvantages?

 Now go to the Web Brain page.  Here folks have shared their personal brains with the world.  Browse one or two of them if you'd like.  Then take a look at Jerry's Brain.  Note how either links or actual web sites appear in the window on the bottom of the screen. Here the brain is being used to organize information and visualize the links among different categories and documents, rather than using a traditional file structure.

8.  Navigate the Brain until you find the link to the article "Turning Glare Into Watts" using the brain. What publication is this article from?

9. What do you think are some of the advantages and disadvantages of using a spatailization tool like this to organize knowledge?

Spatializing Data

10. Play around with Smartmoney's Map of the Market. What sector of the market is doing well today?

11. How do you know it is doing well (What graphical elements clue you into the fact that a sector is doing well)?

12. Why is this a successful or unsuccessful spatialization of data?

Think this is cool? I found something that is even more awesome. Turns out other data can be spatialized using the same technique. Check out the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History History Wired web site. The map here contains 450 objects and while you could use either a traditional search engine or a simple text listing of the objects to the method presented here is much more fun, and perhaps more efficient. You can browse the objects here by object categories, by date, or by themes. Note that as you move your mouse over the map, orange lines connecting to the themes at the top of the interface appear. When you click on the themes buttons the objects related to that them are highlighted in orange. You can pick out more specific theme categories using the drop down list on the left. Play around with this map a bit to figure out how it works and then answer the following questions:

13. Who made Dizzy Gillespie's Trumpet?

14. Use the sliders at the top right and left (above the dateline) to zero in on the year 1844. What object in the collection associated with the Theme communications dates from 1944?

15. What object was "still there" in 1813?

Imagine surfing our library's catalog using such an interface. Now that some of our books are stored away only accessible by robot, such an interface might partially recreate the experience of browsing in the physical library.

Website Analysis Information Landscape Maps

When you run a website you often want to know a bit about who your visitors are, how many are surfing your site, which pages they are looking at and, where they come from. Now you could just run a program that collects and presents this data in the form of tables, but looking at a map might be more fun. Surf to the screenshots page for VisitorVille and check out the Animated Flash Clips if you are able to do so in the lab. If you want more information you can check out this Wired News article.

16. What metaphor does VisitorVille use to represent traffic on a web site?

17. What advantages do you think this spatialization provides over the same data presented in tabular form?

Pretty nifty eh?

Virtual Worlds Maps

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games have their own cartographers. Take a look at the Map of Second Life

18.  What do you notice about how the world is structured from looking at this map? What form of transportation do avatars use to get around?

Using Maps to Find Photos

There are multiple ways to use maps to find photos of places.  For example, on Google Maps you can use a map to find photos of particular places. Go to Google Maps.  On the upper right hand corner click on more and select photos.  Now see if you can find a photo of Whitehaven Beach, (the white beach) on the northeast side of Whitsunday Island, in Whitsunday Island national park,  in the Whitsunday Islands, off the coast near Airle Beach, North of Brisbane, in Queensland, Australia. 

19. Provide a link to the photo (click view in Panoramio).

Using the World to Navigate the Web

Ok, forget about using maps to navigate the web, let's talk about using the world itself to navigate the web through a mobile device. Augmented-reality maps allow you to do just that!  Check out this recent article from National Geographic. 

20.  What is the price of gas at the nearest gas station in this photo?

If you have time you might also want to view this video from a TED talk demonstrating augmented reality mapping from Bing.

Where are you on the Internet?

Ever feel lost on the Internet?  Finally, all good shopping malls have a sign that says "You are here."  Apparently folks thought that the Internet should have one too. Go to Find Yourself On the Internet and find yourself on the Internet.

21. Where are you?

That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed the trip.