As If You Needed Another Reason to Use Google

Google, already a website that I use daily (homepage, chat, email, search) has upped the ante once again.

I love maps, and I love the spatial data contained in them. That's uber dorky, I know. For a long time I've used maps.google.com for any directions I may need somewhere, and now they've made the site better by adding a traffic function to it! Apparently this came out a little while ago and I just never noticed it until recently. I don't drive much, so that's partly an explanation (as if I had to justify myself :P).

Anyway, if you use Google Maps for directions, now you can see the traffic before you step out the door. Even better, if you have a BlackBerry or similar such phone with web browsing you can get this info on the go! Neat!

Since we're on the topic of maps, I'm going to direct you to Wikimapia (which is also linked to the right). Wikimapia follows int he same vein as Wikipedia in that you can add and edit places. It's a beautiful marraige of open source community driven input and maps. Yay!