Monday, November 9, 2009

New entries in mashup contest

There are a few new entires in the MushupAustralia contest. With only a handful of exceptions they are all built with at least a simple mapping capabilities (you guessed it, overwhelmingly Google Maps!). Here is a brief description of the most interesting ones, in no particular order:

Fridgemate: simple concept of creating a "fridge list" and a map of places of interest in a local area. Currently the most popular mashup, with top score and the largest number of votes.



CrimeFinder: very impressive thematic mapping application built with Silverlight and Bing Maps. Nice user interface. What is of interest to me the most is how did the author managed to incorporate Local Government Boundaries in vector format. I know, I know, Silverlight is vector format (as Flash) but it appears there is some support as well for vector generalisation since boundaries are redrawn with different level of detail depending on the map zoom extents.





Suburban Trends: also very impressive thematic mapping application with ABS population statistics and various crime related information. Great use of dynamically loaded vector polygons of suburbs and Google Chart API.



NSW Crime Explorer: another application exploring crime statistics in tables, graphs and thematic maps (it appears to use static KMLs though).



ABS In Motion: statistics presented on an interactive Flash charts (not for low end computers).



Demographic Drapes: OpenLayers application using Google Maps as a backdrop and a number of thematic layers with populaution statistics and various administrative boundaries. More like a traditional online GIS.




Tonight I have also submitted my last application for this contest: revised Bushfire Incidents map. Just in time for the new bushfire season. I added extra controls to show additional information on the map:
- wind conditions (live from Bureau of Meteorology Web Feature Service)
- RSS feeds from Victorian CFA and NSW RFS (geocoded on the fly where possible)
- Locations of Fire Brigades in Victoria (over 1,200 points), and
- Weather widget and YouTube video player.


This is the last week of the competition. Entries close at 4pm, Friday 13 November. I am still hoping to see submissions from the commercial end of town but maybe they are all too busy chasing real projects…

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