The Silicon Florist compiles an interesting feature called Six map apps that put Portland on the mapping map
Portland is map happy. And nowhere is that more evident than our obsession with the mapping APIs that further the technology of cartography.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the mapping and location apps that call Portland, Oregon, home. (Thanks in no small part to the reigning King of mapping, Matt King. An “*” below identifies each of his mapping projects.)
Platial
The most well-known Portland-based mapping application, Platial, is the largest independent social mapping application. Platial enables anyone to find, create, and use meaningful maps of Places that matter to them.
Unthirsty*
In Unthirsty’s own words:
Unthirsty is the work of a group of like-minded souls who were always struggling (for obvious reasons) to remember where and when they last enjoyed that good happy hour.
KnitMap*
Yearning for yarn? Look no further than KnitMap, your way to finding all of your needling knitting needs or simply getting your Turkish Cast-on on.
SocialMap*
SocialMap was created to help solve the problems we encountered on the web within the communities we are a part of. Through its humble beginnings as a national Happy Hour finder, then a Knitting store locator, we noticed regions and groups that had a passionate user base, but were very underrepresented online.
Mapdango
Winner of the “Best Mashup” at this year’s Mashup Camp, Mapdango takes other API-accessible content and plots it on the map.
Mashup Awards described Mapdango as “An extensive Google Maps mashup that lets you explore locations with helpful information including weather (WeatherBug), photos (Flickr), facts (Wikipedia), events (Eventful), news (Google News) and more.”
WeoGeo
New to the Portland mapping scene, WeoGeo takes a deep dive into online cartography, providing extremely detailed mapping options. [WeoGeo] supplies surveyors, engineers, cartographers, and scientists with the ability to conveniently store, search, and exchange high-resolution CAD and GIS mapping products. Mappers easily list their data for sale. Researchers quickly find the data they need.
(Bonus) TwitterLocal* ( formerly known as TwitterWhere)
TwitterLocal is another Matt King project that makes location information useful in the context of Twitter, and similar to TwitterVision. Simply plug in a location and TwitterLocal will provide an RSS feed of the Twitter residents in that area, like Portland, for example. It’s a valuable tool for getting a feel for your neighborhood Twitter types. Now you can have a feed of Tweets within 50 miles or Portland — or 5 miles of Manhattan.
That’s just a short list. But, admittedly, there’s so much mapping occurring in map-happy Portland, that I may have missed some obvious maps. If I did, please feel free to admonish me in the comments.
In the past two years, dozens of software companies have taken root in downtown Portland, notes the Oregonian.
Jive software, for example, formed in 2001 in New York City, came to Portland in 2004. It has 145 employees at its current location at Southwest Third Avenue and Alder Street.
eROI is a 50-person software company that moved into a big Old Town office last winter.
“Software companies have always tended to go toward these types of creative spaces, but this is now a full-grown phenomenon,” said Harvey Mathews, executive director of the Software Association of Oregon. “I get calls from people from all over the place, and all of them want this Old Town, downtown, brick funky space.”
The SAO has put together this map of Oregon technology companies. Zoom in to downtown Portland to see just how densely concentrated these businesses are.
