2 posts tagged “map”
Are you wondering, by the way, why none of my recent bike videos have shown up on my maps yet, or why no new maps have been posted since early July? Well, that's because I'm too busy actually bicycling these days, while the weather is still warm, plus running my arts organization, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, which wasn't open yet earlier this summer when I got the first three maps finished and posted. But in just another two months or so, it's suddenly going to be too cold and nasty again to go bicycling on a regular basis, and will stay that way for another six months or so; I figure better to just go ahead and run around and collect up all the raw data for these maps now, while the weather is still good, then spend the winter slowly getting the rest of the maps done at home while hiding from the cold and snow. That way I'll have a good seven or eight maps ready by next spring, when it'll be time to start bicycling again every day, and with all those map placemarks fully integrated by then into Google Local Search.
Did you know that, by the way? That whenever you create a customized Google map, whenever you add a placemark for a specific situation that contains either text or a photo or audio or video, it gets added to the overall Google Maps database? That way, whenever someone does a search on, say, "Wrigley Field," they'll not only get the official Google search result, but the option to view user-created content as well; and any person on the planet who chooses that option, then, will see your placemark right next to the official Google one. Pretty cool, I have to admit, and pretty smart of Google to add all this precious original content to their overall database.
The obvious goal, then, is that people will also combine Google's SketchUp to this all, a free and easy-to-use CAD/CAM program that allows people to create 3D buildings, then automatically load THEM into Google Earth and the Google database as well. If a chamber of commerce could get their stuff together, for example, they could get all the businesses in their organization to fill out a detailed placemark about themselves, plus get someone to make a fully textured 3D version of the business (or maybe the chamber of commerce hiring some computer geek to do all the buildings at once, hint hint, hint hint). The chamber of commerce, then, could create a customized Google map with all these businesses within it, which could be used in all the following ways...
--Adding to the Google online database, for people to stumble across randomly or while searching on a specific topic;
--As a downloadable Google Earth file, at the chamber of commerce's website;
--As a cool standalone demo for visitors at the chamber of commerce offices, or even city hall;
--As a source of press for those businesses; it's not that often, after all (or yet, anyway), that chambers of commerce band together and create a media-rich 3D customized map of all their businesses at Google.
This is what I'm trying to do with my bike maps, after all; not only add a little to the overall Google database, to increase the overall value of the info there, but also to drive traffic to my website "long tail" style, ergo the arts center as well, not to mention do a little boosterism for the city of Chicago, not to mention explain a little about my theories concerning city planning and urban renewal. Oh, plus give smart tourists an idea of other things they can do while visiting here besides going down to Navy Fucking Pier, plus give locals ideas for cool day trips they can make right within the city itself, on a boring Sunday where not much of all is going on, without having to worry about hotels or train rides back and the like. See how many different benefits you get from investing once in a technology like this?
As always, a quick recap first for those who need it...
Because of my looming 40th birthday, I've decided to make a number of big changes to my lifestyle this year; among other things, I've decided to try biking between 3 and 5 miles (5 to 10 km) on every day this year it gets over 60 degrees (15 C), and every couple of weeks to put in a longish bike ride in order to build up my endurance. By the end of the summer I'm hoping for such rides to be 30 to 50 miles in length (50 to 80 km), but for now I'm shooting for more like 10 to 15 miles (15 to 25 km); so one of the things I'm doing these days is thinking of various fun trips in the city I could make that would be that total distance, either one-way or round-trip. (Bikes are allowed on all city trains and buses, making one-way bike trips quite easy.)
Anyway, an upcoming promotional event from one corner of the literary industry has inspired what I think is going to be my first longish trip of the year; it's happening this Saturday, in fact, where I will bike all over the north side of the city to celebrate national Free Comic Book Day. I worked out a route on Google Maps, in fact, that lasts 12 miles total, that would not only take me to three comic-book stores participating in the promotion, but up almost the entire length of Lincoln Park as well, including such landmarks of heavy interest as the zoo, the conservatory, the Lorenzo Taft sculpture of Lincoln, the last grave left in Lincoln Park (from when it was a cemetery in the 1800s), two museums, a historic belltower, a mysterious totem pole and a lot more. And such a route of course is especially cool for two reasons:
1) Because I'm actually excited about Free Comic Book Day this year: instead of the usual exclusive collection of lame superhero comics specially given out in the past, this year includes such indie favorites as a Victorian detective story from Eddie Campbell (From Hell), a collection of never-before reprinted Peanuts strips, and more;
and 2), ever since Google introduced the ability to build highly sophisticated custom maps -- ones that can not only have text, photos and videos embedded within the route, along with mile markers and multiple colors, but can also be exported en-masse as a Google Earth (.kml) file -- I've wanted to make one! But to make one, I need to actually go out and ride the route of the map I want to make, and take all the photos and videos that will be in the mashup.
Anyway, like I said, the full route takes me a total of 12 miles (20 km), and takes me by enough interesting stuff to add at least a dozen and a half points to my finished Google map afterwards. The rough breakdown is shown below:
*) My home, Uptown; start/finish.
1) Chicago Comics, 3244 N Clark. Total distance: 1.25 miles.
2) Graham Crackers Comics, 2562 N Clark. Total distance: 2.45 miles.
3) Brainstorm Comics, 1648 W North Ave. Total distance: 5 miles.
4) Southern tip of Lincoln Park: Chicago History Museum, Taft sculpture and more. Total distance: 6.85 miles.
5) Historic Art Deco cafe at southern edge of zoo. Total distance: 7.45 miles.
6) Conservatory. Total distance: 7.8 miles.
7) Chicago Nature Museum. Total distance: 8 miles.
8) North Pond Cafe. Total distance: 8.3 miles.
9) Elks national headquarters and veteran memorial, a ridiculously magnificent structure that must be seen to be believed. Total distance: 8.6 miles. Also in this section, Goethe sculpture and garden.
10) Back officially on the lakefront path, in this case at Diversey. Total distance: 9.1 miles.
11) Start of Belmont Harbor. Total distance: 9.6 miles.
12) "Dog Beach" at Belmont Harbor. Total distance: 10 miles.
13) Mysterious totem pole, near Addison. (I'll explain where it came from in my eventual map.) Total distance: 10.35 miles.
14) Waveland Clubhouse and Bell Tower, recently restored to its original historic condition. Total distance: 10.65 miles.
15) The mysterious "Peace Garden" at Buena Avenue, beautifully landscaped but with almost no official information existing concerning its origin. Total distance: 11.25 miles.
*) Back home. Total distance: 12 miles.
So anyway, like I said, I'm going to try to very slowly make such a trip this coming Saturday, on national Free Comic Book Day; in fact, I asked my oral surgeon today during my check-up if it'd be okay to do such a thing, just a week after my latest bout of surgery, and he said sure. Then I'll upload the photos to Picasa (owned by Google), and the video to YouTube (also owned by Google), so that I'll be ready to import it all into my custom Google map, which will eventually be imported as a whole into Google Earth. Whew, that's a lot of synergy! So wish me luck; and of course if you live in Chicago and want to join me for part of the trip, or a coffee/drink somewhere along the way (I'll be spending the entire day to go its length, so obviously will be taking it easy and making a lot of stops), just drop me a line and let me know.
