Google Just Launched Two New Features For Their Online Maps: Terrain Maps and Collaborative Maps.
The terrain maps will certainly be of benefit in showing the lay of the land, but the collaborative maps feature may prove to be an even more useful tool. The ability to create your own custom maps has been available for a while, but collaboration may result in greater benefits. It can create conversation. Invite your readers to share their favorite restaurants, places to hike, etc, and give anyone who stumbles on your map the right to add their favorites. And be sure to get specific with the map, as they do in the example in the Google announcement linked above. Or, you could decide to simply collaborate with others in your office to control the content and show off your local knowledge.
The map below was created to test the collaboration tools. I've shared collaboration rights with two cousins and an uncle, and they can invite others to collaborate as well. The map is embedded here and interactive, so click on the icons and see how it all works.
Grafton, WV: Places To See, Things To Do
I know y'all are going to have a lot of ideas about how to use these new collaborative features. So let the sharing begin.
Tip: If you want to embed a map like this here on AR, you MUST NOT switch back to the WYSIWYG editor, even if you save. AR will remove the iframe tags and the map will not show up. So, add the map code in last and save from the html tab. Also, if you want your map to scroll, like this one does, you will need to change the code to scrolling="yes"
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