interactive maps

With the growing use of the internet there is a growing audience for interactive web-based maps (who would have thought). There are many great uses for interactive maps. They are not only fun to look at such things are your home town or planning a trip but there are also many potential uses for businesses or academics as well. It can be a great place to show such things are what data you have to sell or offer. You can show where you stores are located and how to get to them. You can show where your cell coverage is or planning to be. The uses are almost infinite.

However I prefer the fun aspect of interactive mapping. Most of us are familiar with Google earth however I found another site that is also fun to play with and has more thematic based maps that depict many cool data layers not offered by other interactive maps.

The MapMachince created by National Geographic is one cool example of interactive web-based mapping.http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/mapmachine/ My favorite is the "more theme maps" tab where you can pick different thematic layers to view for the selected map extent.