cowbite.org

Interactive pirate map

A google map of piracy attacks (the actual maritime variety) that have taken place in the Gulf of Arden in the last month, courtesy of Lloyd's List. (via Journalism.co.uk)

View Larger Map

cf. Somalia's pirates

Shiver me timbers etc etc.

Osama Loves

My colleague Adam Gee has something of a knack for interesting projects. Osama Loves is the latest - a hunt for 500 Osamas across the world in collaboration with the folks at Mint Digital. It's a fun proposition - a Dave Gorman-esqe laugh with bigger, subtler messages sneaking in under the radar. Adam writes about the whats, whys and hows in more detail here. I really like the use of video galleries as a way of getting an instant snapshot of the project and a fun way to navigate. It's all hugely clickable and the heart motif adds extra cute points.

5th Anniversary of war in Iraq :: Google map

There's a huge amount of coverage of this anniversary, both broadcast and print media. C4's "Happy Birthday Iraq" season starts today - a week long look at the past five years of the conflict. It's been very difficult to try and manage the scale of all of this. It's a subject that expands beyond your reach the moment you start thinking about it. Online we've got tons of content, both written and video, news footage, personal accounts and film clips.

One of the things I was keen to do was give some kind of geographical context, and to try to promote C4 as an editor of choice - point to where the interesting content elsewhere on the web is. I wanted to help people find content beyond the usual news sites they might visit. So we've put a considered selection of C4 and non-C4 content into a google map. You can start with Baghdad and zoom in/out, and we've chosen the satellite view deliberately - I don't know about you but being able to see the streets of places I only associate with news footage somehow brings it home.

See what you think. I don't think it will change the world, but as a way of navigating content I think it's interesting.

Maps of Properties Through Time

Trulia (US real estate search people) and Stamen Design (they of the Oakland crime map) have collaborated to produce a beautiful map mash-up of property growth in the US. The map itself is a lovely thing to click around, but what makes it really interesting is the way the blog links it to local historical and civic information. Fascinating for people moving to an area - the heritage of your local area is compelling. And a brilliant resource for local (and not so local) historians.

Thanks to Andy Pipes for the link.