How to use PamPam, Felt, and Proxi to make online maps

This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a e-newsletter that helps you uncover probably the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe here.

PamPam, Felt, and Proxi are new instruments that make it simpler to create, share, and publish engaging on-line maps. You should utilize them to visualise itineraries, to map out your favourite eating places, or for data-journalism tasks. Whipping up maps has gotten quicker, extra visible, and extra enjoyable.

PamPam offers you a enjoyable, free option to create maps to share with mates. It’s excellent for spinning up a fast map of really helpful playgrounds or monuments you’d like to go to.

• PamPam makes use of AI to counsel place descriptions and to determine areas even should you don’t know have an tackle.
• The playful aesthetic makes it enjoyable to make use of. You possibly can add annotations with drawings, textual content, or stickers.
• Stay collaborative enhancing means you and your folks could make a map collectively simply as you’ll work in Google Doc.
• It’s tremendous straightforward to create a brand new map by importing a listing of locations. You possibly can paste in something out of your clipboard, or a Google My Maps hyperlink, an Airtable database, or any hyperlink that has locations on it.
  • I examined it by pasting in a link to this messy site itemizing NYC violin makers and immediately received this good map.
  • I additionally examined importing addresses from a Google sheet (initially made by Sergio Spagnuolo) and received a pleasant map of NYC media headquarters as of 2016, full with colourful icons.
  • You probably have a Notion web page or some other hyperlink with addresses on it, you may import it in seconds. Or simply copy and paste a listing of addresses.
• Pricing: Free for as much as 3 maps with 150 spots. $12-$25/month-to-month for embedding, extra maps, and extra premium options.

Every of the three maps beneath took me only a few minutes to make:

Felt is a contemporary, collaborative map-making instrument that’s extra superior and complicated than PamPam. The browser-based platform lets you create, annotate, modify, and visualize knowledge. You possibly can import nearly any sort of map knowledge—together with KML, CSV, Excel, Zip, or GeoJSON recordsdata. And you’ll share what you create privately or publicly at no cost.

• Gallery: Try cool instance maps, or take a look at this super tutorial map. One other instance: Look again on the NYC media headquarters in 2016.
• Pricing: Free for limitless map creation and sharing, or $30/month for superior options together with picture and PDF exports and embedded maps.
• Study extra. Watch Felt’s 60-minute video tutorial or a series of brief intro movies.

Datawrapper makes it straightforward to create your individual maps whether or not you’ve got a small listing of locations or a huge dataset. You don’t want any technical abilities to make use of it. And it’s straightforward to make one thing look good even should you’re not a designer. Datawrapper’s map descriptions can assist you determine which sort of map to create. 

• Pricing: Free for nearly all use.
• Chloropleth maps allow you to color-code a map based mostly on how widespread one thing is in a specific place. This works for displaying issues like regional incidence of a illness, geographic breakdown of voting, or revenue by location.
• Image maps are helpful for displaying hotspots. I used this map kind to point out application origins for a 2020 cohort of the Journalism Creators Program I lead. 
• Locator maps allow you to drop pins on a map to highlight specific areas. This works nicely to point out a number of particular spots impacted by one thing, wheelchair accessible subway stops, for example, or the locations most impacted by a brand new coverage.

Proxi is a helpful new service for creating and sharing visible maps that has particular options for companies and anybody creating group occasions.

• You should utilize it to create public maps for community gatherings, to share wedding ceremony occasions with company, or to point out historic occasions on a map.
• You probably have a enterprise or group, gather customer information with pop-up varieties.
• Gamify your map by creating check-in spots, with factors awarded for visiting locations.
• Pricing: Free 7-day trial, then $9/month or extra relying on options. Free for academics and nonprofits.

Google’s My Maps: Easy, conventional

Google My Maps permits you to make a map to share out of your present Google account. It’s straightforward to make use of, however doesn’t have the superior options of Felt or the social and design parts in Proxi or PamPam.

• Instance: Create my favorite spots for guests to NYC.
• Finest function: It’s straightforward to search for locations and add them to your map.
• Pricing: Fully free.

What instrument to select?

• Felt, Datawrapper, and Flourish are nice for journalism maps with massive datasets as a result of they’ve superior options and many customization.
• Proxi is nice for small companies and group organizers as a result of it has pop-up varieties for capturing info from guests and metrics.
• PamPam is greatest for people sharing maps socially as a result of it’s straightforward, quick, free, and the ensuing maps are clear and visually partaking.

Different helpful mapping instruments

This text is republished with permission from Marvel Instruments, a e-newsletter that helps you uncover probably the most helpful websites and apps. Subscribe here.