I’ve made us here (and there and there) of Clustrmaps, the free web tool that can pin your web site visitors to a map by reverse geolocation mapping of their IP address.
It’s very cool, and has the great attribute of what I am attracted to in Web 2.0 land- it’s free, easy to set up, gives useful features and services, and once set up, you can forget about managing it.
But I just came across one I thought I had seen in an earlier incarnation, that does something similar, then again, very different- Frappr allows you to create a map for your site, but it is a Google type map, and your site visitors can add their own “pin” to geolocate themselves, add a photo, and a short caption (or shoutout). So in some sense it is a web site guest book, but mashed up with a map.
I first saw it on the Center for Digital Storytelling’s Storymapping siteand scratched my head and said, hmmm, how might I use that? It then seemed to make sense to have it as a feature on our NMC Campus Observer site a WordPress pimped site we use to share our projects and events in Second Life. So on our version, a Visitor’s Map, we ask visitors who have been a part of NMC’s activities, to geolocate themselves, but to use their avatar names and photos as a label. I was able to customize the choices for pin colors, so people could self identify if they were from NMC member organizations or not.
As a sidebar, I created it on Friday, and 2-3 people added to it without any effort. A blog post and an announcement to the SL Educators listserv added a whole set of new of listings, and at least half are people I don’t think I’ve even met before.
It also provides some web stats, so might service as a really (really, really) basic stats tracking tool
So no, this little web app will not revolutionize e-learning, replace your course management system, or make you web famous for 15 nano-minutes, but it’s one of these things that makes me say hmmmm, took little effort to experiment with it, and rummages around my mental pile of web resources as something that may have a use down the road.
Adding to the basic stats tracking tool; you may want to also augment needs by also adding in GoStats.com. GoStats is do easy to install and the depth of reporting will make any worries about stats melt away. Having Clustr or Frappr with GoStats is a great stats solution.