Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Of course, online maps aren’t exactly new. Ever since MapQuest launched in 1996 – establishing the space and kick starting the adoption of location based services – digital information and service providers have been looking for ways to better add context to places. In the past few months, we’ve seen upgrades and new services to mapping sites that provide aerial photography, 3D imaging, and street-level perspectives. Artists and collectors of odd or interesting images have been gathering and organizing the more unique results from these location queries. But, in general, the way we’ve used these services to-date has been pretty limited to navigation.

What’s so interesting about Platial – and what makes it so different from the other mapping services – is the way in which it presents digital maps as a framework for demonstrating relationships and facilitating storytelling. It offers users the ability to reflect the community they live in.

Platial “neogeographers” generally start by browsing and viewing maps developed by others, or contributing to open collaboration maps. Then, in a fit of “who knows better than me where all the best sushi joints are in this town?” or “that relationship was bound to fail which would have been obvious if I had just plotted out all the places we made out,” users move on to developing their own maps.

A quick tour of the site reveals a breadth of interpretations and motivations for personal mapping. From informative (Taquerias of San Francisco or Used Book Stores that Stock Science Fiction) to entertaining (Religious Dress Around the World or Atlanta’s Best Haunted Places) to commercial (50Cent Fan Map) or even deeply personal (20 Jobs and How I Got Fired From Them or These are the Songs of My Life), Platial seems to give its fans a way to become conscious of, and add meaning to, the routes they’ve taken in life.

The Platial map building toolkit is pretty familiar and easy-to-use – anyone who has posted a blog or developed a profile on a social networking site will find building a Platial map straightforward. Users can import or develop fresh content, including tags, descriptions, comments, photos and video, then organize it in a way that’s contextually tied to a location. The results can be presented to the Platial community alone or posted on a personal site, blog, or MySpace/Friendster profile.

Continuous improvements and enhancements are being made to keep Platial ahead of the competition, but that might not be enough to avoid being outmaneuvered by one of the other mapping behemoths (Google’s recently launched MyMaps in particular). Still, Platial’s breakout points to a new user-directed paradigm for cartography, similar to what Flickr did for photography or YouTube did for video. So you too can now answer, “which *blank* do you live in?”

Bridget McKinley