We Can Now Map Everything -- from Illness to Endangered Species

By Jessica Clark, In These Times. Posted March 1, 2008.

It's flu season, and you're feeling woozy. Have you caught that thing that's going around?

To find out, head over to Who is Sick?, a Google map-based tool that lets users report their symptoms. Plug in your zip code to find nodes of contagion near you.

Or maybe you're depressed. Misery loves company. Check the local emotional temperature at We Feel Fine to see data-mined sentiments from blogs, organized geographically.

Maps are everywhere these days. The ubiquity of global positioning systems (GPS) and mobile directional devices, interactive mapping tools and social networks is feeding a mapping boom. Amateur geographers are assigning coordinates to everything they can get their hands on -- and many things they can't. "Locative artists" are attaching virtual installations to specific locales, generating imaginary landscapes brought vividly to life in William Gibson's latest novel, Spook Country. Indeed, proponents of "augmented reality" suggest that soon our current reality will be one of many "layers" of information available to us as we stroll down the street.

Like other technological innovations, this trend gives with one hand and takes with the other.

For some, mapping has become a vibrant new language -- a way to interpret the world, find like-minded folks and make fresh, sometimes radical, perspectives visible. For others, maps portend threats to privacy and freedom of movement. Just see Privacy International's Map of Surveillance Societies Around the World, which classifies the United States as an "endemic surveillance society."

Google builds it, people come

Credit former President Bill Clinton for kicking this all off. In May 2000, he signed an executive order removing "selective availability" from the government's GPS transmission, a protocol that introduced errors into coordinates transmitted to receivers not approved by the military. But it's Google that has powered the amateur mapmaker craze, by allowing "mashups" between the maps it provides and other data sets.

Google Earth is the crown prince of the search engine's mapping realm. The downloadable, interactive globe combines the thrill of a first-time flyer -- Look, Mom, the people look like ants! -- with a near-superhuman sense of control and mobility. With a click you can stand the Earth on its head and shake change out of its pockets. Selecting Google Earth icons can lead you to offbeat video clips to the all-important location of the nearest Starbucks. As the Google Sightseeing blog puts it: "Why Bother Seeing the World for Real?"

The program comes with its own built-in "layers" that pinpoint the locations of parks, landmarks and boundaries. Through its Google Earth Outreach initiative, the company has supported efforts by nonprofits to use the program for advocacy and activism. Early adopters have included the Global Heritage Fund (mapping endangered historical sites), the Jane Goodall Institute (mapping endangered primates) and Fair Trade Certified (mapping sites that protect endangered coffee growers).

While new interfaces make adding content to the program ever-easier, developing a layer for Google Earth still takes time and tech savvy. But working with the company's 2-D cousin -- Google Maps -- is easier. Google Maps has allowed (as so often happens on the Web), people's preoccupations to blossom.

Google Maps Mania, a personal blog run by Canadian Mike Pegg, documents the world as seen from hundreds of different perspectives. You can track UFOs, point yourself toward Mecca, find out where your pet fish is from or browse books by their geographical location. Or, if you're the Secret Service, you can request that Vice President Dick Cheney's house be blurred on Google Maps for security purposes. After all, no one likes being watched, right?

See more stories tagged with: google, mapping, google earth

Jessica Clark is the editor-at-large at In These Times and the director of the Future of Public Media project at the Center for Social Media.

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