No idea why I didn’t blog about this a while ago, but I just pulled Placeopedia’s feed into Google Earth. Placeopedia links Wikipedia articles with their geographic locations using Google Maps or Google Earth.
I was, of course, overjoyed to see where Punxsutawney Phil from Groundhog Day came from.
It (Placeopedia, not Groundhog Day - though Groundhog Day is an excellent film) is an excellent example of what can be achieved when API’s are open and relatively simple so that people can hook together different systems. Exactly what the web was built upon. It’s easy to see how this kind of interlinking might really expand into some incredible services (not least in cars and on mobiles, as we’re talking Google Maps).
So, here’s a picture of COFA and my office balcony outlined. If you have Google Earth (and if you haven’t, go and get it ) you can use this placemark to pay me a virtual visit.