Bubble Foundry

I gave my first ‘professional’ presentation today at the Mashup Day of the Dutch public broadcasters in Hilversum. I was the first speaker and hopefully got people in the mood, inspired to build mashups and equiped with a better sense of how to go about conceptualizing them. You can view my presentation on Prezi or read (in Dutch) Rogier van den Brink’s summary of it. I’m tickled pink that Gerald vd Wijngaart retweeted something I said during the presentation: “Mashups are about curation, not content creation.” The whole day was a warmup for the mashup creation weekend planned for September. With the sucess today and the activity on the mashen Ning, I have high hopes for it!

For some reason I have run across a lot of Google Maps mashups in the last 24 hours ago dealing with the less happy side of life. In fact, they (almost) all show recent or event real time events. Some examples:

• Public911.com plots 911 calls in Seattle as they happen.
• Alarmeringen.nl shows emergency calls throughout the Netherlands.
• Misdaadkaart.nl shows reported crimes throughout the Netherlands.
• Live Piracy Map shows acts of piracy throughout the world.

Not in real time but along the same lines (and admittedly quite controversial), there have been several maps made of membership in the far-right BNP in the UK in the last day as the party’s membership list was leaked online.

On a lighter note, the US Office of National Drug Control Policy made a map of medical marijuana dispensories and Starbucks cafés in San Francisco, eliciting predictable responses.

As you can see, a website mapping important events or locations can be a very powerful way to make a political or business point.