Ask has added new functionality to their local maps. After performing a search on city.ask.com there’s now a new drawing tool that allows you to draw borders, shapes, or text on a map. You can save the maps and even email a link to a marked up map.
i.e. Joe’s Pizza delivery area
or Area 51?
How useful is this feature? Well, the company that I work for is split over multiple locations, and just today we had a cust care rep in Albany try to tell us exactly where a business was located “find the intersection of these highways, then go west until you see a horseshoe road, it’s near there”. Having them go to this mapping function and just email it right to us would have simplified the whole process. But what about a regular user? Well, the cool feature that they’ve implemented to go along with this, is that you can search within the shape that you’ve drawn. So say you’re in a hotel in Chicago for a conference, and want to know what your options are for pizza within a 4 block radius, simply draw it on the map, and search within the boundaries.
Nice, thanks ASK.
March 9th, 2007 - 4:48 pm
I didn’t think too much about the practical application of the drawing till I read your examples, pretty cool! And yesterday Barry Schwartz over at SE Land commented on some other stuff that Google Local is rolling out to enhance their local listings too. Local is def. heating up… yep a space to watch.
March 13th, 2007 - 10:22 am
One of the other uses is to propagate your new doodle annotated map via email and/or a permalink since the drawing is contained in the link.
For example you can view my map at any time.
Here is the link with drawing info embedded: http://city.ask.com/city?msid=f29535c07bc94e24c4c10fd0b697730c&msuserid=eeef09e483dbd0f315991e723912e733
Mike Blumenthal