The Transformation of Maps with Web 2.0

There have been many things transformed by the information age, but none of them so much so as the map. Having gone from a handmade drawing of what could be seen in the surrounding area to a digital representation of the world, the map has changed completely. It used to be that if you wanted a map of the world, you had to resort to an inaccurate map created by human drawing skills and the people who came before them. This lead to many different types of maps even after we figured out the general shape and size of most bodies of land and sea. These different types of maps range in many ways and not all are equally accurate. The map we see used most often is the Mercator projection map . This map makes the poles look larger, stretching them out, and makes the equator look smaller, shrinking it. This means that countries such as Greenland look as large as countries like China, although China is four times as large as Greenland . For many people this is a problem that must be fixed. The map was never made to be accurate in size, it was only meant to make longitude and latitude straight so as to make it easier to plan trips by sea. In the end this is one of the many things that has become obsolete with the invention of the internet and the tools we put on it. One of these tools is map service sites, the best known of which is Google maps. You no longer need to worry about trying to make it more or less accurate on a scale when you can now digitally just spin the world globe and look at the world as a whole. This is a different way of being able to interact with the map too as several people can all be looking at the same map and have different markers in the map without interrupting anyone else. People can also turn the map in ways they couldn’t before without distorting the essential nature of the map. This includes adding and subtracting things from the map as necessary. You can also look either at a state map or a usa map without having to change out what you are looking at. Overall I would say this has changed not just because of technology change but because of a shift in our perceptions and our needs. Like the Mercator projection map is no longer viable because people don’t need maps for that purpose anymore, the paper map in general is running in that direction as well.

Hip Young Things

The Transformation of Maps with Web 2.0

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