MetaCarta Launches GeoSearch News
Mapping and geosearch infrastructure provider MetaCarta has launched GeoSearch news, which locates news stories on a map. One can search by keyword or browse by category in a location.
Here’s the press release and more from CNET.
There are a variety of other sites that seek to “visualize” news feeds. YourStreet, a MetaCarta client, and Everyblock do similar things in putting news on a map.
MetaCarta is serious about this as a consumer destination. But before there can be much traffic or ad revenue accordingly there will need to be some “alternative views” and feature upgrades added. In fairness the site just launched and is in early beta.
March 24, 2008 at 2:43 pm
This is going to fail, for the simple reason that it contains no additional information. It’s a map … with news, now of course it’s interesting to watch news in my region, but what use has the map … it contains no additional information. Writing “New York” is more useful to the reader than showing him New York on a map.
March 24, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Agree that there need to be changes and improvements. Map view is primarily a novelty when it comes to news.
March 24, 2008 at 3:30 pm
i think it’s a bit strange that metacarta invested a great deal in OpenLayers yet used the gmap to showcase this project
March 24, 2008 at 5:41 pm
i would think the articles which are plotted on the map pertains to that region. its funny how the screenshot shows ‘Warriors top Lakers’ from a Detroit news source.
April 8, 2008 at 1:15 pm
[...] part of a larger phenomenon of plotting news on maps. A partial list of folks doing that include MetaCarta, Everyblock, Outside.in, YourStreet and [...]
April 21, 2008 at 9:33 pm
[...] appeals court decision, which distubed me and I stumbled across this nice implementation of the MetaCarta GeoSearch News on the Reuters [...]