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This map has been created with the UCLA commuter in mind. I currently live in Culver City, a short 22 minute bus ride from campus on the Big Blue Bus route 12, or about 4 miles south of campus. When I was searching for an apartment off campus I could not find a map that just showed me where bus routes went, only which bus routes services the campus! This information was critical to picking a suitable area to live. I felt it was necessary to have a direct transit line to campus from within a 1/2 mile of my residence. Every time I found a potential apartment I would have to figure out a new transit schedule, rather than merely plugging in an address to Google maps with a bus overlay and seeing if it would work or not. This is very important information for anyone who uses the bus system at or near UCLA, or who is attempting to find a new place to live off campus.
When overlayed with Google Maps rental search it creates a very powerful and useful tool for any person who is a UCLA commuter looking for a new apartment in West LA.
Google has mad it possible for just about anyone with a computer and internet access to become a modern day self-made GIS specialist to there own design. With so much information to be shared about what is where and how it can influence our daily lives, it has been interesting to see how this barrage of data has changed the way people upload and update what is happening around them. From the weekend hiker who wants to know where exactly that trail goes to the politically interested who needs to see where Obama supporters are and how they are disbursed; neogeography has become a powerful tool on the web to change tables of data and lengthy summaries of where it all is, to a concise interactive maps, portraying sometimes complex information into a user friendly format that anyone can understand, quickly and with ease.
Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out" and anyone who has used the internet knows there is allot of garbage out there. With so many people using the internet, thinking they are GIS specialists who have critical information everyone needs to know, the world wide web has become cluttered with junk. If one merely types "Obama" into google maps with the "user created maps" filter on, they will see that there is literally hundreds and hundreds of maps created by just about everyone. Some are very well laid out, informative, and have solid data; while others are far from that, having maybe a few place-markers with relatively useless information. This has led to a basic problem, too much stuff. With so much 'stuff', how can one possibly find what they want to find and know if it has legitimate information. I suppose the answer is understanding how the internet works and how to bypass all that junk as quickly as possible, and being able to research where data comes from; but that is a difficult task to run through. It has already been interesting to see the rise of web 2.0 , and to be witnessing where it is going. However, it will be even more interesting to see how companies like Google and Yahoo combat this issue. Possibly more user rating or hits, better key words for searching, or possibly making it more difficult to use applications and having stricter rules so only the very serious will attempt to be data creators (as with apple's app creators).
I thought this was one of the best mappings in class. Great job. Lost a little on some typos in your post.
ReplyDeleteKnow the differences between there, their and they're. Also a lot is two words, and Apple the company should be capitalized just like Google and Yahoo.
9.8/10