The Masterclass in Google Maps took place in the early afternoon in the Raffaello hall of the Hotel Brufani, on the occasion of the twelfth edition of the International Journalism Festival.
Matt Cooke, the head of partnerships & training of the Google News Lab – a world team that provides training for journalists and supports innovations in newsrooms, presided over the event. The goal of the Google News Initiative is to ensure that quality news is recognized on the platform, which is easily identifiable by users and especially that journalistic partners benefit from the creation of such news, providing tools to their work.
The Masterclass therefore set itself the goal of providing journalists with the tools necessary to embellish and improve their articles, both online and in print. Cooke, in this meeting, focused on storytelling with maps, showing examples with the images of Google StreetView and Storypheres, where the insertion of audio can give life to simple panoramic images.
Here are the tools mentioned and illustrated:
Google Street View (https://www.google.com/streetview/) is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides 360 degree horizontal panoramic views and 160º vertical along many streets and allows users to see parts of various cities in the world.
Google My Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/) is a tool that allows you to create your own maps and share them with users. You can also import spreadsheets, insert custom icons, descriptions, include images, Youtube videos, organize your favorite places and routes. The reporter also has the opportunity to add a personal editorial layout to his work.
Google Fusion tables (https://sites.google.com/site/fusiontablestalks/stories) is a web service provided by Google for data management. Fusion tables can be used to collect, display, and share data tables. Data is stored in multiple tables that Internet users can view and download.
Google earth Pro (https://www.google.com/intl/it/earth/desktop/) is an application to download that allows you to tell an innumerable amount of stories. Among the many features, this app allows you to view, manipulate and export GIS data, compare old images and create multimedia marketing material.
Learn more here:
https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/training/
https://sites.google.com/site/geomedialab/
Author: Virginia Morini
Translation: Pau Llosa