Instant web maps like magic

If you're a cartography buff like the Web Guy, the ability to create and edit your own maps online has to be among the top five coolest features offered by Google. This morning on the police scanner, we heard about a bank robbery at the Maine Education Credit Union in Augusta, just a few blocks down the street from the Kennebec Journal. Reporter Matthew Stone was on the scene within a few minutes of hearing the report. Shortly after arriving at bank, Stone called me to post a news update on the web sites. As a journalist, it was great to be right in the middle of the story even if I was just the middleman. While speaking with Stone, I could hear the Augusta police department's canine unit barking in the background and also heard a woman ask Stone what was going on, saying she'd been on her way to the credit union.When Stone returned to the office, we talked about the spree of bank robberies we've had in the area -- seven in the past five months. Stone suggested we put together a map with the locations of the robberies. He did a little research in our story archives, logged on to Google maps and within 20 minutes he put together a nice map which we've posted on the web sites and here.
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