Fun with maps

Darren Barefoot wrote recently about a Google Maps hack called gVisit, which displays a map of the world with pins marking the last "X" visitors to your blog (seems to be about 20, but they disappear from the map after a few days so there may be fewer displayed).

Here's mine (it's also permanently linked at the bottom of the sidebar).

I'm not that the cities can be taken very seriously, at least here in Europe: many ISPs send back their own location rather than yours (which they in all likelihood do not know). Example: a reader in Stuttgart whom I have identified through Sitemeter appears in the map as coming from Neu Ulm; when I browse my own blog from a different computer (also here at home), I appear to be coming from Hannover. (It may always be the ISP's address that is returned: I just checked on my sister, and the satellite photo points to a building in McIntyre Street in the downtown commercial district, not her house. Perhaps the difference is that we Euros have regional or national ISPs and the rest of the world local or city-based.)

But gVisit is still a very clever thing. Google Maps is getting more interesting and useful every day.