I recently started experimenting with the Google Maps API. Here’s one result of my efforts: a Google map of all the places I’ve visited or resided: http://www.lacobie.org/maps/places.html.
The page is simple to generate: the “database” of places is an XML document with latitude and longitude coordinates.
Here’s a more recent experiment, this time using a Plone product for the purpose: http://www.agoric.com/places . I was thinking of writing my own product, but discovered it’s already been done for me. The advantage of the Plone-based product is I can put richer content behind each map point.
Since a kid, maps have always fascinated me. Put I’ve never worked with mapping software professionally. There was that opportunity back in the 90s, tracking banana shipments around the world, using small satellites for telemetry, but that didn’t get off the ground due to lack of funding. Today, we’re considering mapping solutions for emergency management - it’s one aspect of our Resilience Services Group project.