Google Maps within news stories

Written by Adrian Holovaty on August 9, 2005

I've improved our custom publishing system at the Lawrence Journal-World to enable Google Maps within stories. Here's an example.

I'm pretty sure this is this the first example of Google Maps within a story on a traditional news site.

Of course, maps are great for navigating the news, too -- not just for adding context. We'll be adding navigation-based maps very shortly.

Comments

Posted by Jeff Croft on August 9, 2005, at 6:03 a.m.:

Sounds cool, Adrian. You sure that's the right example, though? I don't see any Google maps there...

Posted by Matt Haughey on August 9, 2005, at 8:06 a.m.:

Awesome use of tech to illustrate a story. The only weirdness I see is that the ads and google map kind of flash out of position when mousing over the navbar. I've seen the same behavior on other css layout sites in firefox. Something seems to be up with how it redraws and repositions on mouseover events.

Posted by Adrian on August 9, 2005, at 4:45 p.m.:

Doesn't work in Safari? Yeah, that was my small-scale retaliation for Apple being an inconsiderate, egotistical company that makes and markets overpriced products to customers it doesn't care about.

No, seriously, I'll look into it.

Posted by alan taylor on August 9, 2005, at 7:02 p.m.:

Very very nice - one thing though, the map toggle control gets clipped because of the tiny size. My only choice is "Map" - heh.

Posted by Adrian on August 9, 2005, at 7:27 p.m.:

Alan -- Satellite views aren't available for Lawrence, Kansas, so we're just using the map view. (It's not clipped; that's the only available choice.)

I can see how that would be confusing, though. I'll see whether it's possible to remove the toggle control entirely.

Posted by Mark Hamilton on August 9, 2005, at 8:24 p.m.:

Beautiful. Can't wait for the next iteration. Ever since the Google Maps API was set loose on the world I've seen it as a potential base for journalism and storytelling. Great work in taking that potential another step forward. (And it works fine in Safari 2.0)

Posted by ColdChilli on August 9, 2005, at 9:39 p.m.:

ABC News was using Google Earth for the Shuttle Landing this morining.

They used the Zoom features to show the flight path of the shuttle landing at Edwards

Posted by Poor Person on August 10, 2005, at 6:15 p.m.:

Does the google maps license allow you to place their maps on pages with ads or other commercial purposes?

Posted by alex on August 12, 2005, at 3:43 a.m.:

that's freaking cool.

Posted by chris willis on August 17, 2005, at 12:32 a.m.:

I've noticed that sometimes addresses show up incorrectly at times. Have you noticed any problems or have you considered a disclaimer if, for instance, Google's maps go haywire?

Nice work,

// chris

Posted by warier on August 17, 2005, at 11:23 a.m.:

[quote]Posted by Matt Haughey on August 9 at 2:07 AM ET:

Awesome use of tech to illustrate a story. The only weirdness I see is that the ads and google map kind of flash out of position when mousing over the navbar. I've seen the same behavior on other css layout sites in firefox. Something seems to be up with how it redraws and repositions on mouseover events.[/quote]

second this. i use firefox and face the same problem. the map doesn't display on the story page. i had to see it by clicking on the map link.

the ads also hover around when u mouseover the nav.

works fine in ie.

Posted by Creford on August 30, 2005, at 5:20 p.m.:

Jeff Croft, the map is at the left of the second part as this example.

Posted by Jeff Johns on November 23, 2005, at 2:51 a.m.:

We are doing this at mcall.com as well (Newspaper in Allentown, PA). We only use it in stories that are crime related or some kind of tragedy like a fire. We have code written for the producers to find the geoposition of any address then put it into the blurb for the story.

Glad to see someone else is using this technology for more than just a once and done project. We don't use it everyday because we are not a venue/event driven site. The next time we have one available I will be sure to take a screen shot and send it your way.

Any questions you can contact me at phpfunk@gmail.com or jeffrey.johns@mcall.com.

Good work!

Jeff

Posted by Jeff on December 2, 2005, at 1:59 a.m.:

Here is a link as promised. We actually allow the users to view in a larger version as well and put there address on the map to figure the distance from them to each point on the map.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/police/all-severoupdate1201,0,4688994.story?coll=all-news-hed

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