Yahoo! just quietly brought online a nifty tool called "TagMaps.":http://developer.yahoo.com/yrb/tagmaps/ As the name suggest, it is a new way of visualizing tags by overlaying them on maps. You need 3 components for this to work, objects, tags, and geo-location. Their first example is to use Flickr images, which conveniently has all 3 components.

Example below is using the "World Explorer":http://tagmaps.research.yahoo.com/worldexplorer.php mode and entering "bangkok":http://tagmaps.research.yahoo.com/worldexplorer.php?lat=13.7299635562192... for location. (2 other modes are "night explorer":http://tagmaps.research.yahoo.com/nightexplorer.php which filter only pictures taken at night, and "trip explorer":http://tagmaps.research.yahoo.com/tripexplorer.php which take data from "Yahoo! Travel Trip Planner":http://travel.yahoo.com/trip )

TagMaps aggregate objects (in this case, pictures) that has the same tags in the same geographic area, and display the tags on the maps. Tags with more items appear in larger type size, and location of the tag text is the mid point calculated from all objects with that tag) It is very smart.

And it can be embedded! Thumbs Up, Yahoo!

For more of what you can do with this (especially, using the engine to display your own set of geo-tagged objects or through custom RSS) see the "Yahoo! developer network for TagMaps.":http://developer.yahoo.com/yrb/tagmaps/

I've always hope Google will someday add streets of Thailand to its map, then we can start using Google Local and derivative services that it entails. But seeing that after "US,":http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=chicago "Japan,":http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=hiroshima,+japan and "most of Europe,":http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=south+kensington,+london the next places Google decides to include are the "Moon":http://moon.google.com/ and "Mars,":http://www.google.com/mars/ I am constantly on the look out for other players to jump in.

Until recently, 'online' maps of Bangkok you could find are "very limiting":http://www.hoteltravel.com/thailand/bangkok/maps.htm that, in fact, the most useful ones are the "scanned version":http://bangkok.sawadee.com/map/index.htm of a detailed printed map. But yesterday I came across 2 potentially very useful services for this city.

*BKKpages*

"bkkpages":http://www.bkkpages.com/ has a cool flash-based map that includes street map schematic (no street names) and tons of "user-entered places.":http://www.bkkpages.com/directory The directory's main categories are restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shoppings, and other useful places like embassies & hospitals.

But god is in the details, they have plenty. The site feels "web two-ish":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2 eventhough it's table-based design. "Each place":http://www.bkkpages.com/eating-out/swiss/chesa has associated with it the street address, but the real useful part is their location based information. For example, it tells you the closest BTS & MRT stations and the distance from your house. (if you tell them where you live, or just use some arbitrary place as starting point) It tells you the estimated taxi fare. (which I'm sure is very rough calculation, but still nice) And they make good use of categories.

*Longdo Map*

"Longdo Map":http://map.longdo.com/ จาก "Metamedia":http://www.mm.co.th/ ไม่มีอะไรหวือหวาเหมือนอันข้างบน แต่ตอบคำถามในใจผมได้เกือบหมด นี่มัน Google Map ดีๆ นี่เอง

* ชื่อสถานที่และชื่อถนนเป็นภาษาไทยหมด
* มี "map mode":http://map.longdo.com/?lat=13.745236047122889&long=100.53240376983024&re... และ "sattelite mode":http://map.longdo.com/?gmap=1&lat=13.745221245218266&long=100.5324232578...
* ค้นหาได้ ตอนนี้หาได้เฉพาะชื่อสถานที่ ยังใช้ชื่อถนนไม่ได้
* ซูมเข้าออกด้วย scroll wheel ได้
* เพิ่มสถานที่ได้โดยผู้ใช้ (อันนี้คู่มือบอกว่าทำได้ด้วยการ right click) แต่ผมลองแล้วไม่มีอะไรเกิดขึ้นแฮะ