Lab 3: Neogeography

View Best Day Ever in a larger map

This is a map of what I like to imagine as the best day ever. I tried to make it relatively realistic in terms of how much I can accomplish and the feasibility of budget constraints, but it wouldn’t be the best day ever without a little extravagance right?

It doesn’t take too much brainpower to comprehend the usefulness of neogeography. It testifies to a time in history in which people are used to doing everything themselves. From personal computing, to social networking, to blogs we are indeed the do-it-yourself generation. Neogeography fits right into this mentality as it allows anyone, virtually anyone, to create maps for themselves or for others. It allows for unprecedented flexibility and individuality that map making used to lack. Being able to put additional information like pictures and videos into the map is helpful because you can enhance the message or desired ambiance of the map in ways that simple changes in colors and shapes can’t do. Being able to embed other websites into certain locations puts information at the tip of the viewers fingers if he/she so chooses to look.

However, there are a few pitfalls to neogeography as well. Purely based on my experience with Google My Maps there could be improvements in the existing software. I didn’t like how big each of the icons and their respective descriptions were. I feel like if there were any significant amount of icons the map would become cluttered and confusing. This is of course a rather petty complaint as far as pitfalls go. It is also possible that information shared on networks employing neogeography could be used in unintended ways. Although it is no complaint of the field or practice itself, it’s just important to be careful about what you make public because everyone can see and use the information for whatever intents and purposes they like. This includes criminals, sexual predators, stalkers and the like. This being said, as long as you are careful neogeography is incredibly helpful and has a bright future.