Check out the UMapper today, which adds the ability to layer real-time tweets over your maps. While there are a lot of real-time tweet-mapping applications out there, the interesting thing about UMapper’s implementation is that you can create a map with a specific search term built into the map metadata.
See below for an example: this map focuses on the Washington DC area, showing real-time tweets with the word “Toyota” in them. In the map below, you can also pan and zoom – which will show the posts from any area of interest.
UMapper real-time tweets has come along quite away since the last time I looked at it, which was around a year ago. The map above uses OpenStreetMap as a base layer, and there are quite a few improvements: different base data providers, several templates, as well as a flexible user permissions system that allows for collaborative mapping. While I didn’t include anything fancy in the map above, it is also possible to mash in other data sources (e.g. KML, GeoRSS, GPX). This allows you to easily design and share maps.
The ability to embed maps, such as the one above, is also a nice capability. For example, it would be great for event monitoring – where real-time tweets people all over the world may be using a Twitter hashtag to talk about the event, but you are only interested in real-time tweets from the specific event location. While geotagged tweets have been possible to view in Google Maps for awhile now, I think the UMapper approach presents an attractive alternative for homing in on specific topics of interest.
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