Using Placeopedia

Increasingly, maps are being used online to plot useful information. Last week, for example, Sree wrote about Frappr, a social media mapping site where Web Tips readers are posting their names, locations and photos (add yourself here).

This week’s tip was submitted by Barbara Iverson, a professor of New Media Journalism at Columbia College in Chicago.

She writes:

I came across a new tool that reporters could use in a variety of ways. It is called Placeopedia and is at Placeopedia.com.

I never realized that people put up entries in Wikipedia about their towns and geographical places. Placeopedia links up entries about geographical places in the Wikipedia with the Google map tool. It lists the last 15 places that have updated entries, but includes a “random place” as well as a search box.

When you locate a place, you can use the typical Google satellite, hybrid or map views with the zoom and pan features. I live in Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago, and found my town, info about our interesting geographical landmark (the Ba’hai Temple), and could even zoom in to my house and see my fish pond in the backyard.

I am going to develop assignments for my journalism students both using it and then sending them out to work on developing a Wiki entry for a locale with journalistic importance (the Federal prison? the County courthouse? etc.).

What other useful mapping resources have you found online? What are your favorite uses of Google Maps?

Send me your suggestions (along with your name and affiliation) to poynter (at) jondube.com and I’ll post them in a future column.

WARNING: Wikipedia has recently come under renewed criticism after John Seigenthaler Sr., a former editor of The Tennessean in Nashville, read in his biography on Wikipedia that he “was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby.” After learning this, he wrote an op-ed in USA Today criticizing Wikipedia last week. Wikipedia can still be a very valuable tool (see “Wikipedia for Journalists” for more on this topic). But this is another good reminder to double-check any information you find online (see “Internet IQ for Journalists” for more tips on this).

WHAT SITES DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Please send them to poynter (at) jondube.com and I may run your suggestions.

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