I’m excited to announce (finally) a project that myself and a few other programmers have been working on for awhile now – a flash based map that automatically refreshes without having to reload the entire web page and updates your position, as well as a radar image overlaid on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth street atlas!

That map is so cool! At least we think so and we hope you’ll agree. We’ve just put a pre-release map at the top of the stormchase.com home page so you can see what the map basically looks like. Soon, we’ll be setting up a small utility that will allow any registered SpotterNetwork member to put one of these maps on their own webpage, blog or social media profile. But wait, doesn’t the SpotterNetwork.org website already offer a “personal” tracking map?

Yes they do – but here is the difference: The flash map doesn’t need the page to be manually reloaded, or use any javascript in order to update the position marker, or the radar.

And here is another neat feature – a regular Google Map (“Gmap”) requires a lot of configuration if you’re going to include the radar layer, and it requires Google Map’s API key for the domain that you’re installing the map on. You can easily get an API key for your own website – but what about your MySpace profile? Your FaceBook profile? Perhaps your blogger page? Since you don’t own those domains, you can’t have an API key for them! The problem is solved – now you can let anyone who visits your social media profile see your live position while your chasing, or spotting (whatever it is that you do).

Installing the flash map is going to be extremely simple. You’ll receive some code to cut and paste into your page and that’s it! Please note that due to Spotter Network’s TOS you’ll only be able to track your position only. You can also adjust the width and height settings in the embed code to custom fit the map to the space where you want it to appear – again, it’s very simple for the end-user, as the nerdy guy with the australian accent on television always says – “Just set and forget!” Say again – “Just set and forget!”

If you’re a group of spotters and you want to track your entire groups position markers we can do that for you as well. It will require a bit of additional programming, but we won’t charge a dime to do it as long as your group is listed in the “Member Networks” section of spotternetwork.org (and we won’t do it at all if your group doesn’t have a Member Network account).

Oh – one more thing about our flash map, check out the FULL SCREEN feature – that’s awesome! We’re lovin’ it!

Tags: flash widget, widget