Week 3: Dynamic Map Old Town Prague

View Downtown Prague- Old Town in a larger map

            Neogeography is a misnomer because it has been around since the 1920s. However, with the expansion of the Internet to the public, there has been an explosion of ordinary people using neogeography in everyday life. It can be very useful and deceiving at the same time.

            Neogeography has many applications that can help people locate locations, directions, maps, etc. It makes the population much more aware of their geographic location and encourages them to create their own maps to share their experiences. For example, a traveler might use neogeography to write a blog and create a map to illustrate where they have been, what they have seen, and what they recommend to other tourists. All of this information can be easily accessed from the Internet and viewed by anyone. Some examples of these programs are Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, and MapQuest. These sites are made accessible by application programming interfaces, or APIs. Neogeography is also used on social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram in order state the location of a person or where a picture was taken.  Neogeography has definitely put a more fun, social way of looking at geography.

            There are some drawbacks with all this easy access with neogeography. Due to the lack of regulation of what can be posted onto the Internet, the information that people post does not necessarily have to be accurate. Therefore, the travel blogs, directions, instructions, coordinates, etc. do not have to be correct. It is very hard to catch these mistakes because the Internet has become such a huge domain that it is nearly impossible to keep track of every single post onto the Web. This leads to a proliferation of inaccurate information and therefore creates a false image of what is true in the “real” world.