Tuesday, November 4. 2008

Track US Election Results with Google Maps

You can track the election results in real-time for the presidential, senate or house elections...or if you are reading this after the fact...see the results.

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In this Election Cycle...It's All About the Map

In my 'geocentric' world, if Google Earth didn't excite your feelings about maps and mapping technology, then this year's U.S. presidential election should have told you it was 'all about the map.' Since the summer, I've been blogging at our other publication, Map Hawk, about how the media uses mapping technology. Many of the maps in use by online media outlets were using Flash technology, some were on Google, and some still just static maps. Because of the nature of our red vs. blue leanings, it has been somewhat easy to identify the country's persuasion best by putting them on a map. More so than at any time in the past, maps are the platform to more easily convey results. They technology has been there, and as CNN has so marvelously shown, the display technology has been there as well. I suspect this has changed the way the mainstream media will forever report news. It already has because of the use of Google Earth was prevalent before this, but the specificity with which the campaigns where pinpointing candidate rallies and thus the emphasis on certain states and districts, maps became both the reporting mechanism...and sometimes the news themselves.  And that's where the use of the technology must eventually lead...much greater detail must be paid to reporting the results at the precinct level (not just county), real-time information I suspect will be more readily available as results could be reported electronically, and there will be an ever greater use of web services to support news flow. We've seen maps, GIS, and other forms of location technology in this cycle come to the forefront plus websites like TwitterVoteReport and other social networking platforms display geospatial information. I guess maps really are..."cool."

A History Lesson of Presidential Elections...Put to Music and Maps

I have to admit, if I were in school again, I actually might learn something about presidential elections by watching this YouTube video of the history of elections put to music. From 1789 to 2004...From Washington to Bush...this video traces the elections on maps...nicely done.

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CNN Going Over the Top with Maps, Info on US Elections

CNN has lots of data and they are putting it up on a maps: Electoral vote tracker, poll closing times, voter problems or irregularities, and links to Google Maps to provide voters driving directions to polling places.

YLive Down for the Count; Wither Fire Eagle?

VentureBeat notes that Yahoo Live, the company's in-development experiment in real time social streaming is shutting down come December. In the same breath, MG SIEGLER notes, the Y Live Blog offers a plug for Fire Eagle at Yahoo's Next Blog and suggests it too may not make it. Yahoo Live and Fire Eagle both came out of Yahoo's Brickhouse, a laboratory for new apps. It's possible that new iPhone apps that take advantage of Fire Eagle could rev up interest, but as has been pointed out to me, if Yahoo can't figure out how to monetize Fire Eagle, as cool as it is, it'll die.

Dash (Internet Connected GPS) Lays Off 50, Will End Hardware Sales

Those 50 are 2/3 of the company's staffers. Those with devices in hand will continue to receive support and updates, though it's not clear for how long. The company has investor money to stay alive through 2009.

Other changes:

- a move to a B2B rather than B2C model
- end of hardware business
- will license the platform to nav, smartphone and netbook devices
- CEO will step down

The challenges, said new CEO Rob Currie in an interview with Om Malik had to do with the cost of going to end users, the challenge of PND and phones in the nav space and the economy. Malik suggests we may see Dash apps for smartphones, like the iPhone, soon.

My take: Dash was the first ones in the pool and the company took too big a leap. The high original cost ($600) with few distribution channels (and thus few models to be seen and tried - think Amazon's Kindle) were a challenge. The big sell of combining user information to reveal traffic challenges was a great story, but one that never seemed to reach critical mass for use. I do agree with Malik that we will have more interconnected devices, the Dash may just end up a footnote in that story.

- GigaOm via ZDnet