Beginning Google Maps Mashups with Mapplets, KML, and GeoRSS: From Novice to Professional

CHAPTER 5Your Map and the Real World

In many ways, the geoweb is all about connecting the virtual, online world with the real, physical world by means of mapping. In this chapter, we'll look at various techniques for making the "last mile" of that connection. We'll examine the issues surrounding the conversion of generic place information to latitude and longitude coordinates, and then we'll tour some of the ways your map can connect with real-world, often real-time data, including traffic, driving directions, and street-level photographs. Finally, we'll connect the map with that most real of topics—money—by adding advertising to the map itself.

We'll do this by following a pattern similar to what we have done before, building out an example ...