So, I’ve been busy this past week. Not counting the conference in Nashville last weekend, this week was pretty crazy, due to everything from tests to job interviews.
But I’ve also been busy working on some new stuff for thebatt.com. The company Faneuil Media, started by a former Google employee, has created a software called Atlas, in which the user can input database information (that which can be mapped, of course), and Atlas will create an interactive, embeddable map.
Here are two examples of what I’m doing for The Batt using Atlas:
1. A daily police blotter. I got this idea from Ball State University. Why copy the local P.D.’s blotter onto your website when you can show your readers where all the activity occurred?
2. Aggie Muster locations. This one is still very much in progress, as the database I’m working with is, quite frankly, enormous.
This technology is still pretty basic, but it’s great when we want to display information on a map, and it let’s the user interact and view the “story” at their own pace. These are two things we’re working on, do you, The Battalion readers, have any ideas for interactive maps?
UPDATE: Typically, I can embed the maps directly onto the page, like users can do with YouTube videos, and what we’ll have on thebatt.com on Monday. But for some reason, WordPress isn’t playing nice with Altas, so I just had to link to the maps.
1 Comment
April 8, 2007 at 10:44 pm
great idea chris. I think i’ll use it do some A&M recruiting studies.
WP is usually tempermental with embed tags. check through the WP forums for a widget, if there isn’t one, bring it to their attention.