audioMappr Project
A webservice consuming webservice
So, what is this audioMappr!-thing? In essence, audioMappr! combines the GoogleMaps API and the Audioscrobbler Database in order to visualize the music taste distribution of people all over the world. Audioscrobbler is the API behind the playlist-sharing community Last.FM and offers a large variety of XML-data for each user that is registered in the community. Last.FM gives every member the ability to upload information about their favourite music and thereby creates social music networks.
GoogleMaps is a JavaScript-based API that makes world maps accessable through websites. With GoogleMaps, one can look at satellite pictures of pretty much every corner of the world, get directions to waypoints, and find places.
Also, as a little gimmick, audioMappr! uses GoogleMaps' GeoCoder to retrieve latitude and longitude information of the capitals of the countries that are drawn to display some extra information on the data that are presented. Powered by these three technologies, audioMappr! can help to simplify research in fields like Ethnomusicology, Sociology, and Music Information Retrieval. But let's not forget about the fun aspect of this Web Service ;-)
Check out the audioMappr project website