With the advent of new programming that allows web applications to interact with each other, mashups are becoming more complex as well as flexible. Schmapplets.com’s map-text-image mashup is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It pulls in maps, directory information, and user reviews to create fun, interactive maps and virtual tours of many of the world’s cities. What makes it even more unique is that you can create your own virtual tour, or “schmapplet,” and share it on the web with the world.
Here are a few examples of Schmapplets:
Walking tours of famous cities. The city map guides you, and as you mouse over the locations, you get photos and text for a nice virtual tour. Unfortunately, there is no audio… yet.
Locations of restaurants in certain districts of cities. Are you looking for a Moroccan restaurant in Tribeca? There’s probably a schmapplet that will help you find it. Here’s Josh Hubbard’s Guide to Boston: http://www.schmapplets.com/joshatbc/199/
Reviews of restaurants and shopping: People can post reviews. You can post your own review of restaurants. For example, here’s Simon Mildenberg’s reviews of NYC restaurants: http://www.schmapplets.com/simon.mildenberg/213/
What makes schmapplets different than, say, hotels.com, is that you can even post a photo and more information. A word of caution, though – the experience is only as good as the data that underlies the experience. Out-of-date and incorrect information render a tourguide pretty useless. This could be a problem for Schmapplets – they need to have a dynamic database rather than a static one. I am hoping that dynamic database is exactly what they have.
Create your own virtual tour. This is what I like best about schmapplets.com. It’s a great mashup because it gives me the chance to create a virtual tour that’s visually attractive, easy to follow, and easy to use. The only downside is that the detailed maps (from google maps) are only available for a limited number of places, and so it’s hard to take a tour outside the boundaries of the premade map.
For example, I wanted to do a tour of Oklahoma oil and gas exploration and production, but was not able to go outside the boundaries of Oklahoma City. I did a “work-around” and put in stops in downtown Oklahoma City, but I actually described something else. I am sure it will confuse people, but I could not think of any other way to describe something 50 miles east of Oklahoma City.
Here’s my schmapplet, Oil and Gas Exploration in Oklahoma, located here: http://www.schmapplets.com/beyondutopia/1267
The possibilities of schmapplets underscores the reality of Web 2.0. The fact is, most people are expecting interactivity and functionality in their web experiences, and e-learning programs that do not include Web 2.0 experiences will begin to annoy and bore their students.
Posted by Susan Nash.
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