December 2015 Summaries

The Partner Summit was a successful event with over 50 partner companies in attendance. It featured technical workshops where developers built an AirBnB consumer insights app, and business development talks that covered user personas, demo tools, and available resources for partners. The summit also explored the future of location intelligence, with industry leaders discussing the role of fresh data from tiny satellites, self-driving cars, and network analysis in the technology stack. The event aimed to inspire a new era of location-based innovation at zero cost and ten times more powerful, sparking ideas on how this trend could be achieved.

Proportional symbol maps are used to represent point data that is attached to a specific geographic location or data aggregated to a point from an area. The map uses absolute scaling or range-grading methods, where symbols are sized proportionally to their values in the data. Two important design considerations for proportional symbol maps are avoiding homogeneous-looking maps and using the right method for your data. Symbols should be sized based on their value in the data, with larger symbols indicating higher values and smaller ones lower values. The map can include attributes such as color and drawing order to make it more visually appealing. Best practices for creating proportional symbol maps include researching cartographic research, experimenting with different design elements, and using CartoCSS to customize the appearance of the map.

Medellín, a city in Colombia, has created a data portal called `Mapas Medellín` using CartoDB to provide its citizens with real-time information on traffic, public transit, and government initiatives. The platform aims to foster communication between the government and citizens, promoting transparency and collaboration. By leveraging location data, Medellín is working towards creating more livable cities through intelligent policy, design, research, emergency response, and economic opportunities.

American Panorama: The Next Generation Atlas` is a new project that aims to realize the vision of an "ideal historical atlas" by providing a suite of data visualization tools for creating interactive maps of change over time and space. Designed by the University of Richmond's Digital Scholarship Lab and Stamen Design, using CartoDB, this atlas supports animation and interactivity with custom-designed cartography, allowing users to explore complex data in greater detail. The project utilizes innovative techniques such as hexbins to distill large datasets into dynamic visualizations, and the underlying tools will be made freely available. The American Panorama is an exciting development in data visualization and historical geography, enabling new levels of exploration and insight into the past.

Spotify used CartoDB's location and data analysis platform to create a data-driven visualization, The Musical Map of the World, which represents millions of user playlists spatially. This project allowed Spotify to engage subscribers by showcasing their global musical influences and compare their tastes abroad. By leveraging geographic analysis and user data, Spotify increased brand awareness through a cost-effective solution. CartoDB's location intelligence enabled Spotify to focus on creating new custom content, saving time and money for media and creative agencies. The Musical Map of the World has become one of the most trafficked visualizations on Spotify's platform, garnering millions of views.

The Planet Labs, Vizzuality, and CartoDB collaboration aims to visualize global sentiment around climate change through a social media hashtag `#LoveEarth`, using Instagram posts tagged with this phrase. The interactive visualization displays pulsating blue bubbles around the world, showing real-time responses from citizens. This initiative is part of the Paris Climate Summit - COP21, which brings together leaders to discuss and commit to limiting climate change impacts. The project seeks to unite voices, broaden the climate change dialogue, and promote innovative technologies to address energy issues and mitigate global warming.

Maptime's year of pizza initiative has been a huge success, providing over 48 meetups across the world with free pizzas for six months. The community has used this opportunity to build amazing projects, including better pothole maps in Austin TX, Twitter storm tracking by Code For Miami, and mapping the Maptime-sheds themselves. The initiative has also fostered a sense of community and camaraderie among Maptimers everywhere, with many sharing their experiences and enthusiasm for mapping on social media. With over 1,480 slices of pizza consumed, Maptime is committed to continuing this effort and exploring new ways to support its worldwide communities.