From Coffee to Celebrity Sightings How Mashups are Changing Online Mapping

Short Description
Mix an online mapping application with other useful information such as ratings or events and what do you get? One of the hottest new trends in bringing the online and real worlds closer together – mapping mashups.
Mash what? If you aren’t familiar with a mashup, it is a website or application that combines content from more than one source and displays that information in a new way. The term actually originates from the music industry where DJs would blend vocals from one song and music from another to create a new, better song. However, the mashups we’ll reveal in this white paper have little to do with music and more to do with the amazing potential of mashups created by merging websites and data with popular online mapping applications, such as Google Maps.

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Content
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What Can a Mashup Do and Why Use One?
At first glance, it is probably hard to believe that a map could do so much to enhance a brand or bring users a more interactive experience. However, as the examples above show, mapping mashups can increase loyalty by better connecting users with your brand – both from an interactive and geographical perspective. Mapping mashups can do a number of things from showing brand penetration in a certain area to connecting loyal brand followers to each other and simply helping potential customers locate your business. Even if you don’t get wildly creative with a mashup, it is still a great visual communication tool.
If you are thinking of creating a mapping mashup, don’t reinvent the wheel. Rather than creating an application from scratch, consider tapping into existing applications. The major online mapping applications all offer APIs for merging your information to theirs. Capitalize on the features that these mapping experts have already created without investing time and money to create them from scratch.
If your interest is piqued, the first thing to do is familiarize yourself with the different features offered by each mapping application and choose the one that best meets your needs – both in function and visual appeal. The most important thing isn’t just to accomplish your end goal (driving business, etc.) but to select a mapping application and create a mashup that will offer a good experience for your target user.
The most popular online mapping applications are provided by Google, Yahoo!, MSN and MapQuest. Most mapping mashups to date have been created using Google Maps. Although not the most popular online mapping application in terms of use (MapQuest still leads with the highest number of users), Google continues to dominate because of its visual appeal, features and speed.
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