Most of our winners this year have offered a very generous resource to their community or the world at large. They are largely movement makers using online and social tools to do important work and spread critical messages, making it easier for people to make life-changing decisions. There are guides to buying local food, guides to avoiding waste, guides to downshifting, local citizen journalism, and global justice issues.

We're thrilled to be a part of all these movements which are literally reshaping our new world, a single world united through action instead of boundary. That's why we started Platial. Being part of these movements and a resource for community action is what we hoped we could do.

Mapper of the Year

Palo Alto History

Mapper of the year was very difficult. There are so many people creating important geographic works and who have taken a very deep investment in their projects. Paloaltohistory, aka Matthew Bowling, has been using Platial for a long time. He's one of our original power users and he hasn't stopped mapping yet. From his maps you can learn that the original Palo Alto Library was inside Simkins Stationary Store in 1896. You can see pictures of the original Palo Alto train station. All of these maps were created to compliment the website Palo Alto History Project. It's a great labor of love.

Map of the year

Gentilly, Gentilly

Our map of the year, Gentilly, was created by a group of students from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, led by Dan Gillmor and Bill Gannon. The project documents reconstruction efforts in New Orleans. This project is a work in progress which continues to inspire. Documenting place through rich interview, photo, video, and finding their part. Led by Dan Gillmor and Bill Gannon, students from their new media studies class went to New Orleans to track reonstruction efforts. The project is still in development but the story, the movement, and the efforts deserve recognition.

Activism

Caatlondon, London Arms Trade Maps

Caatlondon stands for Campaign against the arms Trade, London. It's a grassroots organization which has been active since 1974. These maps attempt to to pinpoint those involved in making London the capital of the world arms-broking trade.

Food (tie)

Farmaid, Homegrown New York

Farmaid is a well-known activist organization. This map helps support farmers by informing the community about where to get farm-fresh local produce in restaurants, farmers' markets, community gardens and more.

History

Paloatlohistory, Collection of Maps

There are a lot of good history maps on Platial but none of the other projects can really compare to this one... yet.

Travel (tie)

Aarronandjess, Big Trip 2007

Yeehaa! Our big trip to South America is underway. Follow Aaron and Jess through the Southern hemisphere.

Nature / Outdoors (tie)

Bianca2000, Shark Attack

Two Platial users have teamed up to keep us all up to date on the latest shark attack news around the globe.

Reference

Raju0704, Temples

Over 1000 temples in India and the US. This is an open map, so if you know of a Temple that is missing, you can add it to the map.

Art

Dsudorion, Galleria und Musea

This map shows over 100 Galleries and Museums around the world complete with great pictures and descriptions of the places. Anyone can add a new location to this map to help it grow.

Autobiogeography

Finkster, San Francisco Joints

This isn't a classic autobiogeography. It's a picture of a family painted in food. The Finks have their map on their blog, which is all about sharing places with everyone.

Independent Business

Soozy's Booth, Ebay Sellers Map

This map is a community map of Ebay sellers. The map owner keeps the map on her independent business website.

Music (tie)

Aeonge99, Wish You Were Here

Map your favorite geographically-named bands. This map appeared on the Wired blog and is a lot of fun.

Media (tie)

NateT, Starcars

Batmobiles, starcars, moviecars, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Starsky and Hutch, the Love Bug. If you drive a replica of the Dukes of Hazzard car, this is the map for you.

Fan

Patty, Mythbusters

Game

Maps, Subbuteo Connect

Subbuteo is a game that was once played by millions of people all around the world. In recent years, the game has lost popularity, but the adepts are fanatical. This map helps them find each other.

News

Mercedsunstar, Tip List: City of Merced

Potholes? Graffiti? Simply zoom in on the map and click the location of your problem area. The local Merced newspaper made the most practical use of mapping and citizen journalism this year. This is one of the best ideas for using Platial we've seen.

Food (tie)

Newenglandgrown, Local Food

New England Grown has invested a lot of time creating a comprehensive local food guide for the New England area. On these maps you'll find everything from Christmas tree farms to llama farms and Farmers' Markers.

Local Guide

Yellowstoner, Yellowstone Fishing

Some people are secretive about their fishing spots and some people put their 150 or so favorite places onto maps.

Travel (tie)

shannonor, Vegas, baby!

Shannor made this map to prepare for her trip to Vegas in the process made a list of great sites for anyone. Pinball Museum...

Nature / Outdoors (tie)

Turinas, Great Places to Sail

This map is a huge collaborative effort between Turinas and his blog readers to map all the best places to sail around the world.

Architecture

Scootdown, RM Schindler Buildings

I'd love to see this map as a printed guidebook. It has photos and information about Schindler's work.

Conceptual

Wherearethejones, Where are the Jones

This project is interesting in so many ways! It's a collaborative internet TV serial written partly by its viewers. The map chronicles the efforts to find brothers and sisters born from a sperm donor, across Europe.

Blog Map

Leiafee, Airfields I've Visited

What makes this a great blog map is the way that Leiafee has integrated links to her blog into the map. The map almost becomes an alternate blog navigation tool.

Storytelling

Smellcommittee, Smelling Committee

Document odors in your own neighborhood. This project includes wonderful descriptions of places and their smells.

Music (tie)

Spinneyhead, Psychodiscography

Psychodiscography is one man's personal musical journey through Manchester. It's a fun read, and a great map.

Media (tie)

Tedmann, Star Map

This map is to the Lower Hudson Valley and b-list celebrities what the Gawker Stalker is for its crowd. Did you see Sally Jesse Raphael at Whole Foods? Suburbarazzi wants to know.

Group

Carla and Tony Hockenberry, Harley Riders

Hobby

Knitonthenet, Knitting all over the World

Knit on the Net uses its map as a community-building tool for the site and as a community-built resource for knitters. It's a great, growing map. If you know what LYS and SnB stand for, this is the map for you.