* A look at Platial Mapkit
Mapping matters. Bridging between the online world and the physical world has never been so important and there’s not only the opportunity to create your own maps but also use maps in a social networking context.
How to do this? The Network World Web Applications Newsletter to the rescue with a Web service that does just that: Provides closed and community mapping services. The service is Platial Mapkit published by Platial.
This free service requires registration but there are currently no ads or other monetization mechanisms, so how the company plans to become profitable is a little unclear.
Once registered you can create a map starting from whatever location you like. You can then create various map services to add to your Web site or blog.
The Mapkit service ties in with the current (and rather obsessive) trend for social networking, and allows you to create a Google Maps-based mashup that can be extended by you and optionally your users.
You simply specify what Web site the Mapkit will live on and agree to Google’s terms of service. Then give your map a title, a starting location, specify the size, the style (hybrid, satellite, or street map), the look of your map markers, and whether visitors can add places, leave comments, and give ratings. Platial will generate your map and the HTML code fragment to incorporate the map into a Web page.
Once the Mapkit is installed on your Web page and if you have enabled user input they can add comments, HTML, photos, or video. The map shows both the actual map as well as a list of all of the location you and, if applicable, your users have identified.
Platial also offer the ability to create “tours” – automatic maps from MySpace pages and Today Nearby, a service that links current events to your map. You can add the obligatory tags to any map or location within a map and search for specific features such as Parks and Outdoors, Art and Music, and Bars and Nightlife in the locality of a given map.
Platial’s service is very polished and definitely offers a very useful service that is extremely easy to use. How they will make money is anyone’s guess – they have had references to a “Pro” service for some time but to date there are no details.
If you need mapping and, most importantly, collaborative mapping this is definitely a service to check out.
For a demo of Platial used on a real site – well, as real as Gibbsblog ever is – take a look here.
