Throughout history maps have been an integral part of society. It is an innate aspect of human nature to want to document the world around you—to make life easier to navigate and explore. Obviously, since digital technology didn’t exist back in 600 BCE. the earliest world maps were paper maps. These early maps were hand crafted as opposed to digitally created maps we have today. The vast advances in technology today allow us to create extremely detailed and informative web maps. Once the Internet was created, using the Internet to publish maps has become very advantageous. According to Jim Detwiler, in his article “Introduction to Web Mapping,” “Among these advantages [of mapping on the Internet] are that they are usually cheaper and less time-intensive to produce, easier to distribute to a wide audience and easier to update and maintain… they allow for the possibility of interactivity…and connections to related information though hyperlinks.” Maybe most importantly, as stated by Detwiler, “One could also argue that Internet-based maps have increased public awareness and demand for maps.” This increased exposure to maps, because of access to the Internet, has led many innovative minds to create new apps, programs, and advanced technologies, which benefit our inventive, resourceful, mechanized society.
Because of innovative mapping technologies, today we have apps like Google Earth, Google Maps, and Waze. Google Earth is an advanced mapping tool that “is a virtual globe, map and geographical information…It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and geographic information system (GIS) 3D globe” (Wikipedia). One of its most interesting and useful features is that it “displays satellite images of varying resolution of the Earth’s surface, allowing users to see things like cities and houses looking perpendicularly down or at a bird’s eye view.”
Google Maps is a service that I personally use almost every day. As many know, it is a “desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, offering satellite imagery, street maps, and Street View perspectives, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, bicycle (beta test), or with public transportation” (Wikipedia). This application is extremely useful for me personally, since I am not from Los Angeles and when I need to go somewhere I’ve never been before it provides me with a route for car, bus, or foot.
Waze is an app that is extremely useful in cities with high traffic density, like here in Los Angeles. Waze, according to their website, works by “after typing in their destination address, users…drive with the app open on their phone to passively contribute traffic and other road data,” which then provides users with new routes to avoid traffic, police traps, etc. These three apps, along with the multitude of others are prime examples of the impact of web mapping.
Works Cited:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps
https://www.waze.com/about