http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/upshot/ncaa-football-map.html?_r=0#10,34.155,-118.116
http://projects.nytimes.com/crime/homicides/map
I found the Introduction to Web Mapping to be a great summary of the development of maps on the web. It was especially interesting since I took a course on GIS last year, and I plan on going into web design – and both relate to web mapping. Web mapping has had a huge impact on personal navigation; Google Maps has enabled anyone with a smartphone and signal to find anything. People no longer need to struggle over a large printed map, instead, Google Maps links people to their destination for them. But web maps have broadened more horizons than just navigation. Maps have always been incredible visual sources of information, and I especially enjoy New York Times’ interactive maps.
The lesson went over the definition of interactive maps, and states that most commonly interactive maps include the ability to zoom and pan. Other forms of interactivity include the ability to toggle map layers on and off, obtain detailed information about map features, and browse to web sites associated with map features. While the first maps on the web may have been overwhelmingly static, interactive maps are now commonplace.
One NYtimes map that was particularly horrifying to me was the College Football Fan Map. The New York Times mapped out the percentages of who was loyal to which college football team in each county across the nation. The map is interactive, so I immediately zoom in to my hometown. It is bright red, which was expected because I live close to Stanford. Next, I went south towards Los Angeles. Where was UCLA’s fan base? A tiny section of the Westside showed our tiny fan base in comparison to USC’s, which dominated most of Southern California.
Without visualizations like this map, it is a lot more difficult to interpret statistics and draw a conclusion from them. I immediately saw how small the area UCLA’s fans are located with New York Times interactive map.
Another NYTimes map that’s intriguing is the map of homicides in New York City. You can toggle different filters to see what ethnicity was the victim, the gender of the perpetrator, the month and time of day, and others. This map is an example of a tool that would be useful to the police force in order to prevent future murders, an outcome of a map that’s a little more useful than seeing how big you school’s fan base is.