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I'm a big fan of Lonely Planet. I used their series of guidebooks during an 11 country around-the-world trip I took with my wife in 2002. I'm also all about great travel maps mashups and it turns out Lonely Planet is the first of the big travel guides to embrace Google Maps online. Not only are they using it to mash up their own content, they're also facilitating the process for Lonely Planet users to do some maps mashing of their own! Check it out:
LPmaps is a new initiative from the Lonely Planet Labs that sees Google Maps integrated into many areas of the Lonely Planet TV website. Use a Google Map to find user-uploaded video clips , search and locate specific video clips you view on the site. The video finder includes a nifty navigation ribbon to search by specific continent and country! LPmaps also gives travelers the chance to mash up LPmaps (Google Maps) with Lonely Planet content and embed it on their own travel blog, start page (Google Personalized Start, Netvibes etc..) or website. Very cool stuff!Here is an excerpt from the LPmaps page:
We’re really excited about all the ways we can help travellers connect with one another and build their community. LPmaps is another way that we are helping travellers create and share their travel ideas and experiences.
What can I do with LPmaps and how do I use it?
We've mashed-up Lonely Planet content and Google maps to create LPmaps (check it out at lonelyplanet.tv) and now, we want to share LPmaps with you. Here are the things you can do:
- create your own map and embed it into your website or blog using the widget builder
- let your imagination run wild; mashup your own content and functionality with LPmaps
- put a map on your blog or website; go find a good map on lonelyplanet.tv and follow the menu to widgetbox, Google Gadgets or Netvibes
Related:
Cool Google Maps Travel Mashups
Category Listing: Travel & Tourism
3 comments:
ike,
very goog work from Lonely planet.
I would really appreciate you go for have a look about Trivop.
Video into google map totaly hotel focus...
I think you should really like.
Lonely and Trivop seem in the same trend about a bigger integration of video and localization in the travel area. Hope you'll have time to check Trivop.com. Thomas
we have launched a new site for ibiza that is primarily using google maps. we have most of the north of island covered in the last few days - bus stops, phone boxes, country hotels, banks etc etc. were doing the bus routes, weve added 80 beaches, the towns & villages, clubs etc
we'll be adding cycle routes, walking routes, and anything that can be mapped. we live in ibiza so its been great fun driving round the island taking photos and then mapping it all. ibizaa-z.com
thanks, ade
ade
I used to rank number one for a lot of country maps.
After the Google Penguin update in April 2012, ALL of Lonely Planets Country map pages are now ranking number one or close to it. Interesting?
ALL of these maps are just Google Map tourist pages with POI on them, they have little country related facts. If I wanted to LOOK at a Google Map I would use Google Maps. These Lonely Planet Country pages are SO worthless and packed with pop-up ads, that it raises eyebrows on how they can repeatedly rank number one.
It is very clear to me that Google has helped Lonely Plant, since they are using all Google maps and are getting paid huge for the map use and Adsense ads.
I can find other examples to back this theory that Google is now backing the largest sites for the money. A another example is the city-data site that now ranks number one for nearly ALL zip code map searches. Again, city-data has commercial Google Adsense ads on their site and are now out ranking my popular zip code maps in the largest markets.
I and others no longer trust Google for good content searches. Hard earned PR is now worthless and weighted way lower.
I now use Bing Search and only use Google Search to check ad rankings.
Google sold out for the quick buck. The fact that they are now putting LARGE and confusing arrows on their Adsense ads is clear to anybody doing SEO.
Google search is totally bias and now favoring corporate America, don't even try to rank with Google.
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