GoogleMap of Architects Designers and Construction Consultants – Latest News and over 30,000 views

Since last week’s update the map has snowballed and we’ve been getting thousands of views every day. Popularity has its downsides though, we’ve had to make some changes! Here’s a run down of what’s been happening and how you can get involved and make the most of the map.

Map goes Regional – how to view

As the map filled up we noticed that it wouldn’t let us view more than 200 placemarkers at once and this was causing confusion for people adding to the map as they needed to scroll to Page 2 before they could see the placemarker they had added. In addition loading the map slowed down navigation.

To solve these problems we have split the map into four regions based upon the current density of users – Americas, UK, Europe and Africa / Asia / Australasia.

The addresses to all the maps are as follows, with links to the bit.ly click through statistics:

Global Map – –

‘Americas’ – –

‘UK’ – –

‘Europe’ – –

‘Africa / Asia / Australasia’ – http://bit.ly/ArchiMapAfrAsia – Statistics

The main map is still here with placemarkers from which you can view the different maps. Mark has also written instructions on how to add regions into one view if you would like to:

To view the Global Map, simply add each of the geographic regions to ‘My Places’ (you need to be logged into your google account to do this). Once this is done, makes use you have opened each map (do this by clicking on each map). Then click the ‘Traffic’ box on the right hand side of the map and select all the maps. You should now be able to add or remove any map that you would like to see.

How to join the map

We were having some problems with placemarkers being moved about, so have now restricted access to only those who have been invited via email to collaborate. There are now two ways you can join the map:

1. DM us your Gmail or Googlemail address and we will invite you to collaborate. If you have a friend who already has access they can invite you too by clicking on the ‘Collaborate’ link found above the map description. Then, add the relevant gmail address into the box and click ‘Send Invitation’. [UPDATE: Mark tells me it doesn’t have to be a Gmail address!]
2. If you don’t have a Gmail address and don’t want to have one you can ask us (or a friend with access) to add your placemark for you.

If you use any google service – Googlemail, mymaps/MyPlaces, picasa, Google analytics, feedburner etc you will have a googlemail address already and will need it to log into these services. With your own access to the map you can edit your own placemarker if you want to later.

Ready to add yourself? Once you have access, follow the instructions on this blog post [Link Updated].

Extra tools

Peerindex list of users – Mark has built a list of ArchitectMap Users on Peerindex which sorts social media users by various influence measures. Visitors can also turn the peerindex list into a twitter list to follow. You should be on this list if you are on the map. Visit it and ‘add suggestions’ in case we miss picking you up manually.

We have set up a Twitter list for all those taking part.

Google Earth View

How about viewing the Map in Google Earth where you can spin on a 360 degree axis to view everyone? It looks fantastic! All you need to do is:

1. Make sure you have Google Earth installed on your machine.
2. Download the KML file, which can easily be done by clicking the KML link next to the comments button on the map.
3. Once downloaded, open Google Earth and go File > Open. Locate the downloaded KML file and import it into Google Earth.

Hey presto….. now enjoy…..

Using Youtube in your bio

Ever wanted to add a YouTube video to your Bio to give it something a little bit extra? Check this article out for how to add Youtube to your bio. Any problems give us a shout.

Information sources

To read news about the map follow the #architectmap hashtag on twitter. Use the hashtag in your tweets about the map. No spam please!

Updates are also posted on the comments section of the Global Map – use the link to share with your twitter friends so we can track its usefulness. http://bit.ly.ArchiMapComments

If you need to contact us the quickest way is on twitter by tweeting @SuButcher or @MarkSchuey (especially if you need us to follow you so you can send us your gmail address privately). Or you can comment below, of course. Please let us have your twitter @handle if you do so we can follow you.

How to make the map useful

Get more people to join so that you can meet local twitter users in our industry.

• Send a tweet to your followers, such as:
  

  I’m on the #architectmap http://bit.ly/ArchiMap ask me how to join!

  [West Coast/Singapore/Manchester] architects, engineers and construction consultants on twitter – add yourself to the #architectmap

• Invite construction consultants when you meet them on twitter. Don’t forget to invite consultants such as landscape and interior designers, structural engineers and quantity surveyors.
• Put your twitter handle in your bio on the map – choose ‘rich text’ view to add the URL so it is clickable. That way people can click through and follow you on twitter.

It is interesting to reach the limitations of a tool and work out new ways to make it work for us. Do you have suggestions for how we can make the map the best it can be? Please add them to the comments below.