New Wave Wikimapia

It seems like Google Maps have been a go-to source forever (in reality it's little more than a year). The days of Mapquest hegemony are a memory. When the satellite overlay came out as part of Google's map project the Flickerati immediately took to creating memory maps by putting notes on grabbed images of everything from their childhood home to where they had their first kiss. The map we've been fiddling with all last week hit the scene just under two months ago and is well on the way to recording a little bit of information about everywhere in the world.

The Wikimapia (no formal relation to the 'pedia or 'media wiki's) allows flickr note style hot spots to be added to the google maps to describe the world. Boston is already tagged with hotspots for broad hotspots like Mission Hill and more specific locations like Pesky's Pole. Editing the wiki interface is simple, painless, and surprisingly 100% anonymous (well, maybe they log your IP – but there's no login). The overall scope of the map is impressive, but once the tiny things start getting descriptors on the map it may just become a little overwhelming.

Ed. Note: Take a look at the map we included in this post - the Harvard Bridge is labled both "Yale Bridge" and "Smoot Bridge" and not its proper name, or common varriant - Mass Ave Bridge. Even if the Harvard Bridge goes to MIT outta Boston it really isn't the Yale Bridge...but surely there's someone in New Haven that is smiling to himself.

Note, Revised: Seems the Yale Bridge has become the UMass - Amherst Bridge. Ahh, the power of a wiki. Hence the weakness of this format. Still this is a cool mapping tool worth checking out.