Influx

A few weeks back we wrote about the phenomenon of “Mash Ups” and the potential of this idea in business. One example we used in the context of mapping with Google API, was the site Beer Mapping . We know NPR had beaten us to the punch with this story, but we wanted to go as little deeper so we got the site’s creator and founder, Jonathan Surratt to do an interview with us about beer, maps and technology.

tell us a little about yourself?

My name is Jonathan Surratt and I’m a full-fledged beer nerd. I know some beer lovers get wound up about the whole “nerd” word, but I read about beer, write about beer and I have spent hours cataloging information about US breweries and beer related locations for my maps. I think I take beer a bit more seriously than the average drinker.

I thoroughly enjoy beer, but I think I enjoy meeting others with the passion for beer equally as much. Sitting in a bar, drinking a flavorful beer and sharing a discussion about beer with someone as passionate as I am, is high on my list of pleasurable experiences.

what is beer mapping?

Beer Mapping is a project that I started back in October 2005. Google maps released their API sometime early in 2005 which made it possible for me to begin my project. I love sites like beeradvocate.com ratebeer.com and beerme.com where you can research cities or areas for their local beer resources. But if you are traveling to someplace like Chicago, you may use online resources to look up what is available in the city of Chicago, not noticing that only 35 miles outside of the city there happens to be a great place like Three Floyd’s Brewing. You need an intimate knowledge of the local scene in order to be aware of what you might be missing just outside of the city limits. This is what I feel Beer Mapping does best. It shows the user a larger picture than we’re accustomed to with simple lists of cities.

The Beer Mapping Project is aimed toward promoting all breweries. From the big guys to the little guys, we want to assist as many as possible. If we can direct one person a day to a new brewpub or brewery to visit, we have achieved our goal.

what was the inspiration?

In the summer of 2005 I was taking a trip by car and I tried to plan my stops so that we could hit as many brewpubs as possible. At one point I think I had four browser tabs open trying to plot my course on a map while attempting to figure out which cities along the route had brewpubs. I figured there had to be a better way to make this happen. And it appears that the technology Google has released helps us to apply a solution to the problem.

what do you like about maps?

I’m a very visual person. Because of this, maps seem to make more sense to my brain. Show me a list and I’ll skim it and forget it. Show me a map and the information seems to stick. I know for a fact that other people’s brains don’t work like mine, but hopefully these maps I’ve
worked on will help someone find a new brewpub or brewery to visit.

how do you think maps will begin to play a more important role in our lives?

It’s difficult now for me to imagine living without internet maps. How did we find anything? Paper maps and the telephone book? Does anyone still use the telephone book?

I think Google Local and Yahoo Local are some of the most effective internet
mapping technologies available for travelers and they will only get better as more information is added. It’s pretty interesting to imagine that 15 years from now we will be looking back at these types of technology and laughing at their simplicity in much the same way we look at the telephone book. I don’t think paper maps are in danger of extinction quite yet. But when you can carry around a pda or phone containing downloaded map software for the world, why would you want to carry around an atlas that is at least twice the size and weight?

what’s technology makes beer mapping possible?

The site itself is run on a custom theme for the content management system, WordPress.But the maps are fully dependant on the Google Maps API. Javascript drives the popup names for the locations when you mouse-over them. Javascripting is also what makes the pins different colors and populates the list. Google maps uses an interesting programming technique called Ajax .To be put simply, Ajax is what is making the maps “dragable” on the fly. The Google Maps API is free for non-charging sites and it has spurned on an onslaught of original ways to use maps. I suggest checking out Google Maps Mania for anyone interested in more examples of maps that are using the Google system.

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