Post: #1

I was just playing around with google's custom maps the other night and it's got some quite useful features. You can create a custom map that will allow you to mark all kinds of points of interest. I'm actually working on one for L.A. right now just for my own personal usage(though I'm glad to share it with other locals I'm done). It would be one central location I can access from my phone when I'm looking for something to do or need some idea of what's close by if I need to venue bounce. I'm adding restaurants, bars, clubs, beaches, hidden gems, places for outdoor activities, just anything worth checking out.

I then thought that it would be cool to have collaborative maps where everyone can place markers of stuff they recommend in every city. It would compliment the data sheets well. What's cool is that you can type in the name of a nightclub on google maps for example, and then just click the "save to my map" feature. Once you do that, all the info is automatically pulled from google such as address, phone number, links to reviews, pics. It's pretty fucking cool. You can also leave your own personal notes under each map marker. You can have either one big map of the world, or you can start new ones for each city. There's an unlimited number of maps you can have under each account.

What I think is most cool though is that you can either make the map public and have it editable by anyone, or select certain users to add to it. So it can be a collaborative map with dozens of forum members adding their own favorite spots to cities all around the world. If you are rolling into a new city, you can just pull it up on your phone and find out where the recommended places are.

It's super easy to tag locations and add comments. Here's a google video on how to use the custom maps feature:





I also made a sample map with 4 points of interest to show how it could be used for our needs. I have 2 clubs, 1 restaurant, and 1 activity marked(click the icons for popup info). You can even change the icons so it's easy from a quick glance to find what kind of place you're looking for. http://g.co/maps/bz72z

Also, if we decide to do this, I already registered a google account to share and collaborate. I wouldn't be the "owner" of this project nor a moderator. It's just for anyone that's trusted here and wants to share some data in a way that's very functional and portable. Let me know what you guys think. If any of you decide to do it, we have to figure out the best way to share the information without it getting into the hands of saboteurs and the haters lurking. So access to edit it would have to be given out only to people that are trusted. We could discuss all that if you guys like the idea.

Post: #2

Great and helpfull idea ! +1

Post: #3

It gets even better is you can access this stuff from your smartphone... e.g. you have a good Google Location App built into the Android phones

Post: #4

These custom maps take a bit of time to create.

Post: #5

Great idea. Even if this doesn't catch on here I'll definitely make one of vancouver just so I can keep track of all the spots ive been to or want to go to.