nuCloud » Interactive Maps

Muscle Car Hot Spots Interactive Data Map

Kyle James — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:21:31 +0000

Cars.com recently put together an interesting interactive map of towns across America that are addicted to American muscle cars. The Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger’s popularity is shown based on search volume in towns. As Cars.com specifically explains it to us:

Using the map above, you can hover over any circle to get the town’s name and the percentage of searches for a particular muscle car. This percentage is the amount of searches above the Cars.com average search, which is why large cities are less prevalent on this map.

View the Cars.com interactive map

The map uses data from the past year’s worth of search data on Cars.com. You can also select one of the three cars to see interest in that specific vehicle instead of all three. This is just another creative and interesting example of displaying data in interesting ways using a map. Not surprisingly, concentrations of muscle car searches are concentrated in the south and the great lakes area.

What do you think of the map? Does this give you any creative ideas for ways that you can crunch and analyze data that you are collecting?

More Than an Interactive Campus Tour – Stadium Tours

Kyle James — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:40:23 +0000

One of the first things we realized when starting nuCloud is that our map tools can be used for so much more than just campus maps. Any sort of virtual tour that can be accomplished through a map is a possible use of the software. Because we have a strong background in higher education it makes sense for us to start with that market, but it is by no means the only viable solution. Part of demonstrating these different uses is giving examples. By clicking on the image below you can see an example of our mapping tool used to explore historic Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

We are going to continue to find creative ways to use our maps and share these with you. This really is just the tip of the iceberg. All of the following are potential uses for our software:

Real Estate Home Tours
National Park Tours
Residential/Commercial Development Area Tours
Tours of the Human Body
Sports Venues – baseball like Fenway, as well as basketball, soccer, football, etc.
Museum Tours
State Tours

The list could go on. The idea here is to think of things that could be better displayed through a mapping tool and then working together to help make that vision come true. Expect more examples in the future, and as we continue to share more interactive map examples, hopefully you will continue to think creatively.

World Cup 2010 – Interactive Maps to Check Out

Kyle James — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:48:32 +0000

Have you caught World Cup fever yet? With the World Cup starting in less than a day it’s important to know when your favorite teams are playing and who.

The Washington Post has created an interactive map that not only tells you this information, but can give you a quick visual representation of where those countries are located. Besides this visual representation you can quickly see what dates these games are happening.

Of course FIFA.com will have up to date information on all the other details. We couldn’t help but mention this creative way of leveraging a map by the Washington Post. It looks like the map will continually be updated as we go through group play with country point totals.

The Washington Post isn’t the only site that has created an interactive map for the event. Fox Sports has created a pretty comprehensive Flash map that lets you follow the tournament format, drill into your favorite country and their team roster, or learn about the venues that will be hosting the events.

And lastly, Inspired Mag has a whole resource post that they call their Ultimate Graphic and Data Resources Guide to World Cup 2010. There are quite a few linked visual displays around all things World Cup related. There are some really cool infograhics in this collection along with interactive maps.

What other World Cup Resources do you use? Any other really cool ones that we have missed? Share them as we’d love to check them out too.

6 Interactive Maps of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Kyle James — Thu, 20 May 2010 13:00:05 +0000

For almost a month now a deep-water oil well has been gushing over 200,000 gallons of oil a day. This catastrophic event has essentially shut down fishing in much of the gulf coast and is another reminder of why the US and whole world must find other forms of energy beyond oil. With this epic event there has been no lack of media coverage and many news outlets have looked to interactive maps to help tell the story. Here are six such maps:

1. New York Times Tracking the Oil Spill Map

This daily time line map was one of the first published on the event. It has since been replaced and expanded upon by map number 4 below but still warrants starting off this list.

NY Times Tracking Oil Spill Map (V1)

2. USA Today Oil Spill Growing in the Gulf Map

USA Today joined the mapping of this disaster a few days after the New York Times. This map which they have continued to update also has a time line that you can play. The other nice notable feature is the various satellite images that you can overlay on the map.

USA Today Oil Spill Growing Timeline

3. Google Earth: How Big is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill?

Paul Rademacher uses the Google Map API to make this interesting creation. Paul’s map allows you to compare the size of the oil spill with various cities and even the ability for you to type in a location and see how the oil spill covers that location. Note: You need to install a Google Maps plug-in to view this map.

Google Map Oil Spill Comparison

4. New York Times Tracking the Oil Spill Map V2

This second version of the oil spill map by the New York Times is still updated daily. Similar to the other one and the USA Today map, there is a daily time line of the map that you can play.

New York Times Tracking the Oil Spill Map V2

5. Times-Picayune Track the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Movement

The Times-Picayune in New Orleans puts a map together to play with the rest of the big boys in this list. Because New Orleans and the area south of here are some of the hardest hit, it makes sense for them to create a map. Essentially what we have here is a daily time line of satellite images of the spill.

Nola Track the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Movement

6. Washington Post Gulf Coast Oil Spill Map

This is probably my favorite of the maps, with a lot of details and notes provided. There is a time line that you can play and a lot of facts and details to be read.

Washington Post Gulf Coast Oil Spill Map

So which is your favorite map? Have you seen other Gulf Oil Spill maps that you want to share? Please leave a comment below.

Multiple Interactive Maps of the Biltmore Estate

Kyle James — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:00:46 +0000

For anyone who has been to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, the 250 room mansion is only part of the experience. There are hundreds of acres of gardens, a winery, farm and even a pond that was in a scene in Last of the Mohicans. To really see the whole estate either you need a full weekend or a really good interactive map to make the tour. Take a look at the Biltmore Estate Interactive Map.

There are a whole lot of really interesting features to this map. The first of which is the fact that it isn’t just one map. After exploring around the map a little I noticed that there are three different maps. One is more of an overview and there are two specific locations that you can drill into to get more detail about those locations. From these sub-maps there is an easy to find button to take you back to the main map. There is also a drop down legend on each of the three maps that help you find specific stops. The zoom on each map is also easy to find and use.

As I’m going through the set of maps, there is a lot to like. There are also a lot of ideas that I’m collecting about things that I would like to make better about our mapping software. The map in map and zoom are two features that the team responsible for this map did an excellent job with. A lot of care was put into stop centering and teamed with excellent photography to give a crisp and clean experience. If you are thinking about creating an interactive campus map, although this isn’t a map of a school, there are lots of great examples in this one of how to do it right. Go explore the map and know that here at nuCloud we’ve gained a whole lot of ideas about things that we can improve and build in future iterations of our mapping software.

Has Your City Done Their Taxes? An Interactive US Map

Kyle James — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:39:06 +0000

If you don’t have someone else do your taxes then there is a pretty good chance you’ll use TurboTax to do them. The maker of TurboTax, Intuit, who also makes the popular financial software Quicken, recently put out the map below so that we can see which cities like to procrastinate in doing their taxes. They announced this map on the TurboTax blog.

This is nothing but using an interactive map for marketing purposes. They found an interesting way to share some of the data that they have collected to create a sense of urgency around people doing their taxes. By creating a little buzz around the subject they also remind people that they make software to solve this problem. This is simply a creative and interesting way to market through an interactive map. I also like how Intuit even gives visitors the embed script so that others like myself can help them market by sharing the information. Notice the nice little SEO friendly link at the bottom of the map. This is a nice way to get some SEO credit back to their site, and I’m happy to share it as they are giving me interesting content to share with you!

So next time you create a map ask yourself if it’s something that you would be willing to post the embed code so that others can post the content on their website.

Free Tax Filing, Efile Taxes, Income Tax Returns – TurboTax.com

(1998-2008) Interactive Map of Internet Growth over a Decade

Kyle James — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:59:44 +0000

According to the latest data there are over 1.7 billion individuals around the world have access to the internet. This is just over 25% of the entire population. And almost 75% of people in North America are online. When you think about those numbers it’s pretty amazing how the adoption of this medium has penetrated into our everyday lives. Although it’s hard to say exactly who created the internet we do know that Tim Berners-Lee first created what we know a s the World Wide Web (WWW) while working at CERN back in 1990. When most people think of the internet the World Wide Web is really what they think about, although it is so much more now.

An interactive map from the BBC allows users to visualize network usage around the world for ten years beginning in 1998. If you slide your cursor over a single country you can see the percentage of online users for that year. At the bottom of the map is a slider to change the year. This annual “play by play” shows us how far ahead North America is, especially when it stops in 2008, but it also shows us how far behind Africa is with an estimated 6.8% penetration.

Estimated Internet Usage in 2008 by Country

Like other examples we have featured on this blog this is simply another interesting way of showing how data can be displayed in a meaningful way. Also, the use of the time line helps us see growth and explains a larger part of the picture.

U.S. Census Using Interactive Maps to Make Accurate Head Counts

Kyle James — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:00:24 +0000

The 2010 U.S. Census is just around the corner. Many of you will probably be getting inquires in the mail very soon if you haven’t already. I received a letter at the end of last week saying that it is coming within the next ten days. The Census comes around once a decade, and it’s a very big challenge to get a head count of everyone living in this country.

This 2000 census mail participation rates interactive map is powered by Google Maps and is as simple as entering a zip code or your city and state. From here you can see 2000 census participation from the mail campaign that was launched ten years ago. Besides being interesting data in itself you are probably wondering why this data is important. This data is extremely valuable to census bureau members in those regions so that based on previous data they can target communities that will probably be difficult to get an accurate head count from.

2000 Census Mail Data Returns of Lousiana

The mapping tool is based on the Census Bureau’s Track Level Planning Database. They have already identified six population and six housing characteristics associated with low mailing responses in 2000. By knowing this they can hopefully proactively do other things to gather this hard-to-get data. With this knowledge, the 2010 Census Hard-To-Count Interactive Map was created.

LA 2010 Hard-To-Count Census Map

The identified characteristics are as follows…

Six person characteristics are:

Language Isolation
Unemployment
Mobility
Below Poverty Level
Receiving Public Assistance
No High School Diploma

Six housing characteristics are:

Crowded Housing
Multi-Unit Buildings
Lack of a Telephone in Home
Vacancy Rate
Renter Occupied
Complex Households

Bottom line the tools were created to help groups promoting the 2010 Census across the nation focus on the right locations with the right campaigns to get the most accurate data. Also, because of these twelve characteristics it tells groups what the specific problem in that area is so that they can combat it accordingly. This is a great example of how interactive maps can help groups be more effective in the efforts through visualizing the data.

ESPN’s SportsNation Interactive Map Polls and Their Failed Super Bowl Winner Prediction

Kyle James — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 06:00:39 +0000

I’ve been a New Orleans Saints fan my whole life. Also, on the way back from vacation last week we spent part of the day Saturday in Miami, where the Super Bowl was being held the very next day. Needless to say we saw hundreds of die hard football fans, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the Saints fans outnumbered the Colts fans of an estimated ratio of 15:1. Because of this apparent favoritism I was quite surprised to see 58% of SportsNation pulling for the Colts.

For anyone who is a sports fan, ESPN’s daily SportsNation polls hand the voting to the masses. The interesting thing about sports is that every fan has his or her own opinion. Fans are usually quite passionate about these opinions too. The way that winners and losers are picked reside in with the cold hard facts or in the case of sports wins and losses. Of course that is why they play the game, but even then people want to debate their favorite players and teams.

As we now know SportsNation picked this one wrong. A big congratulations to the Saints! All I can say is some of us have been waiting too long for this day to come.

SportsNation utilizes US maps and displays their poll data broken down by state. The only required input for any of their polls is choosing one radio button in a defined list. Voting has never been easier. I’m assuming they are able to break down data by state by using analytics that look at a users’ internet service provider (ISP) to capture location data. With these easy-to-use polls SportsNation is able to run hundreds of polls a year on a variety of sports and get passionate fans to cast their votes. By intelligently applying analytics to the poll SportsNation is able to create the colorful graphs and interactive maps of voting by states.

Although the polls are rarely factual, the interesting survey of informed fans provides unique insight into who thinks what. It is able to display this data in interesting ways by combining the behind the scenes data that is also collected. The overall presentation is smart and engaging.

See ESPN’s SportsNation Polls

With interesting tools like ESPN’s SportsNation polling solution there are all sorts of interesting data and interactive map displays that you can create. What really makes this one interesting is not only the very opinionated nature of sports fans, but the advanced analytics that allows the system to collect more data than the user has to provide.

What sort of interesting interactive maps and data would you create with a tool like this?

Interactive Map of the Top Netflix Rentals in Twelve Major Cities

Kyle James — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 19:59:48 +0000

The New York Times creates some of the most interesting and unique interactive maps out there. This new map lets us peek into the Netflix queues of individuals in twelve metropolitan areas. From these cities you can drill down into zip codes to see what individuals in that area are renting.

See Netflix Top 10 Rentals Map

Living in Boston I definitely found it interesting to scroll through the various movies in Netflix top 100 and see how often they are on people’s lists along with going through different zip codes and seeing what the popular titles are. Just in case you are curious and don’t feel like digging through the map, here are the top ten titles rented through Netflix in 2009.

Top Ten Titles Rented through Netflix in 2009

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
Slumdog Millionaire
Seven Pounds
Gran Torino
Twilight
Doubt
Body of Lies
Valkyrie
Burn After Reading

Not surprising that most of the movies on the top 100 list along with the movies that show up in various zip codes’ top ten are new releases.

What To Do With This Data

So the big question is what do you do with the movie preferences of these individuals in US cities? Netflix has the obvious answer as knowing this information can help them offer what individuals in these cities are more likely to rent next and plan inventory and delivery routes accordingly. What the rest of us do with this information is not so obvious. Yes, you can get movie ideas about what to watch before going on your next blind date. Maybe before that next office party you are better prepared for random movie conversation, but even then, this is only useful for people in the dozen chosen cities.

I think interesting user data will always have value. The trick is to find interesting ways to display that information. This map does an interesting enough job of it that I spent twenty minutes surfing through and getting ideas about what I want to watch next. Bottom line, once again here is just another example of using interesting data in an interactive map mash-up. What interesting interactive map ideas have you thought of lately?

Now You Can Embed Your Interactive Campus Map in Facebook!

Kyle James — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:11:19 +0000

So this post is more of a transparent pat on our own backs at nuCloud, but we have successfully taken our interactive mapping software and are able to embed it on a Facebook Page! We are excited because we feel this is a big deal for colleges and universities. As recent data has shown 99% of 18-24 year olds are on social networks. As you all know, for most institutes of higher education this is the target audience for at least undergraduates. Also with Facebook now flaunting over 350 million active users it’s an obvious location in which to place one of your strongest recruiting tools.

Facebook has personal pages and groups, but for an interactive campus map the best page on which to include it is your school’s fan page. This is accomplished through using what Facebook calls FBML (Facebook Markup Language). We’ve gone the extra mile to create the embed script for this FBML inside of the nuCloud user interface so all you need to do is follow the three simple steps outlined below.

Steps for adding your interactive map to your Facebook fan page

1. Setup FBML on your Facebook fan page

a) Login to your Facebook fan page and select “edit page”
b) Find and install the “Static FBML” application to your fan page

c) Back in the fan page editor, find FBML and go to the “Application Settings”
d) Remove “Box” and add “Tab.” Click Okay

e) Choose “Edit” under FBML
f) Enter the title of your map tab under “Box Title”

2. Copy the FBML embed code from nuCloud and paste it into your FBML block

a) Open your map through nuCloud’s map editor
b) Choose “Get Facebook Code” from the Actions panel and copy the Embed code

c) Paste the FBML embed code into the FBML box and save changes

3. You should now see a tab on your fan page for your interactive map.

Check Out Live Examples

That couldn’t have been much easier, could it? Want to see exactly what this looks like in Facebook? Here is how two of our customers are taking advantage of this feature. Please check out the Belmont Map and USC Upstate Map.

Interactive Map of Higher Education Spending Cuts

Kyle James — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:48:42 +0000

Earlier this week the Chronicle of Higher Education gave us an interesting interactive map on Higher Education Spending Cuts by States. The data from this map is provided by new data from the University of Washington. Most states have significantly cut spending and that is quite apparent on the map. I bring up this important issue for two very significant reasons. First, it is a good example of an interactive map with relevant data for our industry and second, with spending cuts we have to be much smarter about how we spend our money.

This map is not much different than the hundreds of maps I’ve seen that pull U.S. data and display it in a state by state comparison. But what does stand out is the interesting layout to find out more information on how to use the map. In the top right-hand corner is a question mark, and when you scroll over it, it displays simple 1,2,3 instructions on exactly how to drill into the valuable data on the map and get comparison data from different steps. This interesting approach is a little bit different, and most maps we see are intuitive enough to not need instructions. Although you could understand how to gather information in this interface, this extra help allows you to drill a little deeper and pull state by state comparisons that aren’t instantly obvious.

So I mentioned that data like this shows us how important it is to spend money wisely, but it is also another opportunity to state my case on why an interactive campus map is a vital piece of your institute’s website for recruitment reasons.

From a recruitment standpoint an interactive map allows prospective students to get a taste of a campus visit without having to drive potentially hundreds or thousands of miles to explore your campus in a guided tour. With rising energy and transportation costs it’s simply not realistic to tour as many universities as students have in previous years. A compelling campus tour helps prospective students prioritize your school and makes for more committed visits when they do come.

As compelling as an interactive map is to an institution’s website, the development costs and, in some cases, simply having a developer capable of creating the map can put it out of reach of many institutions. Outsourcing the whole project costs $10,000 as a base price and goes up from there. With outsourcing, don’t even ask for the ability to change things down the road because that will cost additional development time. I’m not saying nuCloud is the first to tackle these issues, but in very cost conscious times it is important to know all the hidden costs.

You can read more information about this data in the University of Washington PDF brief off their website.

Cisco’s Interactive Map Tour of their Flagship New Data Center

Kyle James — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:00:29 +0000

Leave it to a major player like Cisco Systems to investment in showing off their newest data center through a flashy interactive map. Cisco recently spent $80 million in the renovation of an unused office building on its campus in Richardson, Texas. What better way to fully display this achievement than through an interactive map?

Cisco's Richardson Data Center Interactive Map Tour

View the Richardson Data Center Interactive Tour.

The tour has a collection of videos with all the details about the data center, including close looks and insights from the architect. Not only can you see a cross-section of their whole campus and drill into a few different buildings but the crowning achievement of the Richardson Data Center is that it has details on all the cool dorky networking tech things a Cisco certified professional (CCNP, CCNA, etc) would care to know.

The 3-D cross-section of the center has galleries of photos along with videos on the following subjects:

AC Handling
Building Ramps
Server Racks
Data Distribution
Structured Cable
Etc.

For any world enterprise company looking to build a world class data center, this is a great resource to explore and see how a company that provides the backbone for most of the Internet builds their data centers. From a marketing standpoint the transparency and open access to information like this build huge amounts of credibility with their target audience.

I won’t go into all the details of the facility, like the 25,000 gallon thermal storage tank that stores up to 5 hours of water supply to the facility in the event of a water system failure. I’m guessing many of you simply aren’t interested in the details of a data center, and if you were you probably aren’t still reading this post as you have moved on to check out the interactive map for yourself.

I really recommend checking out this interactive map tour even if you are a true network administrator junkie.

The Difference Between a Virtual Tour and an Interactive Map

Kyle James — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:39:44 +0000

When I look at different interactive maps and virtual tours around the web, more often than not there is a very distinct difference between the two. After all, a map is a map and a tour sometimes includes a map, but I’ve noticed that people commonly call anything a virtual tour including the following:

360 degree panorama photographs
A video of someone walking through locations
Detailed text with pictures of locations
Pictures accompanied by an audio track of what you are viewing

Defining a Virtual Tour

As you can see by just the four examples above virtual tours can mean different things to different individuals. If you look up the word virtual in any dictionary it has a pretty open meaning. Dictionary.com defines the adjective virtual as:

being such in power, force, or effect, though not actually or expressly such: a virtual dependence on charity.

So yes, based on that definition pictures, video, audio and any other online elements that can create the “virtual” sensation of a tour really do count as virtual tours.

Defining an Interactive Map

Defining interactive is just as straight forward. Once again utilizing dictionary.com there is a great definition of interactive as it pertains to the context of a map:

(of a computer program or system) interacting with a human user, often in a conversational way, to obtain data or commands and to give immediate results or updated information: For many years airline reservations have been handled by interactive computer systems.

So being interactive is virtual but being virtual isn’t always interactive. And I think that is the main point. Someone can easily have a virtual tour inside of an interactive map but not always the other way around. So an interactive map is always a virtual tour, but a virtual tour isn’t always an interactive map.

Power of an Interactive Map

What really makes interactive maps like our interactive campus map offering so compelling is the fact that you can have both a virtual tour and an interactive map in one! Keeping things simple but powerful builds a strong case about why you would rather have something interactive than simply virtual. Of course there is more programming and logic that goes into creating an interactive element, which is why you want a system that can handle the logic in place.

So if you are still curious about examples of interactive maps and virtual tours, a simple Google search on each will bring back lots of examples. What you will notice is that some of those virtual tours will be interactive maps and very few interactive maps will make the mistake of simply calling themselves a virtual tour. Why not go ahead and take the extra step next time you create a virtual tour and just make it an interactive map?

Photo by: samuelviani

Interactive Map of the Vancouver Olympic Torch Relay

Kyle James — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:55:47 +0000

There are many uses for interactive maps, and as we’ve shared in the past, these uses go far beyond interactive campus maps. Staying on top of map uses helps keep us up to date on interesting ideas and eventually additional markets for our products. So in the mean time dissecting and sharing maps like this interactive map of the upcoming Olympic torch relay are just as much a hobby as a learning experience.

In 2010 the Olympic Winter Games will take place in Vancouver, Canada. The torch relay will cover 45,000 kilometers over 106 days across Canada and end February 12^th in Vancouver for the opening ceremony. In all, about 12,000 torchbearers will carry the flame along this trip. The interactive map will allow viewers to follow the route as the torch passes through 1,000 communities across Canada. The map stories about each day and enables the public to find good viewing spots to see the torch as it passes through their community.

View the map

I personally love watching the Olympics. I’m more of a summer Olympics fan than winter Olympics, but I love it all. This interactive map built on the Google Maps platform is an excellent resource for all Canadians. I really enjoy the interaction through photos, the ability to tag stories, and other features included on this map. The first day of the relay is this Friday, October 30, and starting this weekend the interactive map will be a great resource to check on a regular basis.