I want to make a map of the world, with people hitting my site as sparks. What's the best way to do this?

Question

Whenever someone hits my site in NY, I want that map to show a spark in NY (then disappear). So, there will be sparks all over the map, as people hit my site.

Is it possible to NOT use Google Maps to do this, with a nicer-looking background map? I'm not allowed to use Google maps.

Answer 1

Google Maps has a geolocation tool that can convert location to longitude/latitude. But, you will primarily want to use that for your frontend, to get the quick visual map data and interface.

1. Use IP address, reverse trace location. Look for IP's that belong to NYC area. Each time that occurs, dump it in a database somewhere. (This is assuming people do not readily geolocation-identify themselves.)
2. Google maps, with ajax feed that receives new entries in the database above.

Answer 2

This is pretty wide open question. here are some things you'll need to think about:

1. Why can't you use google maps, and does that reason apply to any other map sites or other services you plan on using? Are you planning on paying money for mapping services or using a free one?

2. How will you know where people are hitting your site from? Do your users tell you their lat/long when they create an account? are they all using mobile phones with location technology enabled? Are you going to try to guess their loc from their IP address? (whenever someone tries to guess mine, they are off by entire states, as I have a 3G account with sprint)

3. What technology do you plan on using on the client side - you'll need something dynamic if you want the sparks to appear constantly. Your client code will have to be constantly polling the server to get updates about new sparks to show, or else you'll need to maintain a connection with something like comet, so you can simulate pushing changes from the server to the client. Can the server you're using do comet?

Answer 3

This may not be the best solution, but worth trying. You can get a picture of World map and Open it in Photoshop. Use slice tool to slice the picture and create links on it. And save it as html page.