Where are you listening? - The Map
Here's the map we discussed on the programme this week. We asked you to tell us where you were listening and you responded in droves. We've received 17,000+ 20,000+ emails at the last count, and so far we've added over four eight thousand. If you don't see your location and postcode right now, check back again later in the week.
We've had teething troubles with the map due to the large number of markers. We hope to have this solved soon, but in the meantime the best place to see the map is on . This is a free programme but requires an install. Once it is installed on your computer you can view the map by clicking here.
You can also still see the postcodes on Google Maps, but due to the large number of markers, it won't show all the pins at one time. To see more pins, simply zoom in and out to the general area you would like to view, using the '+' and '-' controls in the top-left-hand corner of the map.
There are a number of misplaced or stray markers currently, but the accuracy should improve by the end of the week. Rest assured we're aware SE11 isn't in Liverpool!
We want to 'mashup' this data with other interesting sources, so let us know in the comments if there's any interesting data we could mix this up with. You can also mashup the data yourself in Google Earth - tell us if you do so and we'll highlight the best ones here on the blog.
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hmmm sent my postcode not on the map, oh well!
Complain about this postRe (1)..exactly what is it about "We've received 17,000+ emails at the last count, and so far we've added over four thousand. If you don't see your location and postcode right now, check back again later in the week." that you don't understand?
Complain about this postGood to see all the new systems that you are abel over the World
Complain about this postI simply have to have the first pin in the Noble Blankshire of Cumbria - find my email quick!
Complain about this postDoes this reflect the number and place of the listeners, or the program transmission areas covered? Is there any info about how the people heard the program - Short wave, FM, internet, satellite...
Complain about this postMy postcode isn't showing as registered :-(
Complain about this postI鈥檒l check back again later in the week...
Complain about this postThe program also talked about interesting things people are doing with maps. Given that PM is a news program, I thought people might be interested to see our weekly "world leaders next week" map - most recent example,
Complain about this postOh no! 22029 in Greece in the beautiful village of Tyros on the east coast of the Peloponnese not in the USA.....................and it looks like Texas.........they don't know there is any where else in the world.
Complain about this postWhat map source are you using? St John's is the capital of Newfoundland and the largest city, not Mt Pearl which your map shows more prominently.
Complain about this postMy area postcode does not appear.....yet!
Complain about this postI love this! Not seen mine yet but will track it every day. PM's just great! Thanks for news /fun.
Complain about this postI expect someone clever could add photos from geograph.org.uk for all the British Isles postcodes.
Complain about this postRadio 4 listeners might also be interested in locating their postcodes on the NPE map here:
You can also see what your home town looked like 50 years ago on this site.
Etienne
Complain about this postBrilliant project, interesting to see where people feel they should "flag" their membership to this radio 4 listening group, AND more, those who don't! I sent our postcode off then checked the map to find a complete lack of pins for SN8....hmmm is the internet world smaller than I thought? Not judging the mails I get from freecycle in Wiltshire.
Keep up the great work!
Complain about this postPresumably the riposte to (2) is "what exactly is it about 'My postcode is more important than those of all the other riff-raff who listen to your show' that you didn't manage to know instinctively without being told"?
Complain about this postHoward @ 10:
The map source is TeleAtlas (look at the bottom of the map!), who in this implementation are providing their data to Google.
As TeleAtlas also supply their mapping to many SatNav companies, if the maps are wrong, be afraid, be very afraid!
(Welcome to Caf茅 502 x3 [this'll be my fourth attempt - apologies if any of the previous ones get through!]) For the benefit of 'regular' PM listeners: SB17, 00:48
Complain about this postYou're not processing these emails by hand are you?
Scanning text for postcodes is a trivial programming problem and Google has a perfectly good APi for putting markers on maps.
I'm sure any university computer science department would have been more than happy to set this as a first year project if you don't have the resource to do it yourself.
You guys need to set and manage expectations (i.e. We're the 大象传媒 and Oxbridge modern language graduates haven't yet got the hang of this internet thingie) rather than being offensive to listeners (yes, Eddie(2), I'm talking to you).
Complain about this postSome of the flags I saw yesterday (near where I live) have disappeared!
I suspect a government plot to dupe the 大象传媒 into getting all the pinkoes who listen to Radio 4 to reveal where they live so they can be eliminated. Happy Herodmas, everyone!
Complain about this postInteresting to see how many listeners there are in Africa, and contemplate the miserable amount of news items there always are from Australia, China, India, Russia, South America etc compared with the plethora of items about Africa. If some clown in the backwoods of Ghana has an ingrowing toenail there will be a 大象传媒 team there to document it for us. Why is the 大象传媒 so interested in Africa and so uninterested in the EU and the rest of the world?
Complain about this postYou have my post code DH9 6UT on the map but it is in the wrong area. It is listed as Cookson place and should be Kinross drive, a matter of about 1/2 a mile away.
Complain about this postJohn ( 18 ) tks for the message. Yes this is new and perhaps we are working outside our normal comfort zone as journalists. I think we are now up to around 7 or 8 thousand entries on the map and we are still receiving thousands by the day. There are few technical issues importing so many pieces of data on to the google map - which we are working through. That's why we have been explicit in all our posts and what we have said on air that many will have to check back. This will take us some time. Tks again - Rupert - Lancaster ( BA Hons )
Complain about this postMine, of course, has yet to appear, although sent on the 10th.
The one showing near me is shown at the wrong village, some four miles (and a considerable mountain mass) from the village (also shown on the map) where it should be.
What sort of postcode locations is this software using? The delivery folk or the AA wouldn't find it very useful.
Still, for a pointless exercise, I reckon it'll do...
Salaaaami
Complain about this posted
There appears to be something wrong here. A TQ postcode is plotted in West Midlands/North Worcestershire border?
Complain about this postEddie @ 2, no need to be quite so cross: it may not be the fault of the user, except insofar as whoever it is may not be using your team's approved-acceptable software. Anyhow, s/he @ 1 may have been being resigned to looking over and over again, rather than complaining because s/he didn't get an instant result. Have another cup of coffee, do.
George's statement 'Here's the map' is not so in all cases: there is no map as far as my system is concerned. There is a banner for 'Google', which says that 'Your search for /blogs/ipm/ipm_map.kmz around this map area did not match any locations. ' and will show nothing else.
Not very impressive, that, for those of us who don't have the advantage of having bought the latest shiny Micro$oftware and installed all the precautions necessary to protect ourselves from its many drawbacks.
Eddie @ 23, it's certainly what I would call a pointless exercise, on that basis, but is it really good enough?
Complain about this postI would let you have my postcode along with my email address but two little words stop me - Identity Theft.
Complain about this postWhat is the point of taking part in a fun exercise like this if one's submission is ignored?
I e-mailed my postcode in on Monday 10th at 17.33 but, like many others judging from the comments above, it does not appear on the map.
It would have been the only flag north of Inverness....or would it????
Complain about this postOh brilliant! Mine's not on there yet (though if you zoom in like it says up the top, more appear in areas where it appears there are none) but someone who lives just down the road is on it. I'd never have thought there were PM listeners in Elmswell!
Complain about this postDavid (27) for goodness sake, I don't think anyone is being ignored. Just how much effort do you think it takes to upload 17000 postcodes? I think it's impressive that so much has been done so quickly. The alternative would have been to wait until everyone's postcode had been added and then publish the final map, but I like the immediacy of this.
Complain about this postI'm going to get accused of maliciousness in a minute, but my final comment is that if you can use the Google Earth map using George's link, it is much better and there are many more map pins visible - including loads north of Inverness!
Complain about this postGreat idea!
Last time I looked there were two pins in my town. I've added my postcode, but when I returned the two pins have gone and mine isn't there either. (I have zoomed right in to check.)
Complain about this postI see that my post code did not make it on to the map.
Complain about this postJohn (18) - I make no apology for what I wrote.
Complain about this postDo look at the Google Earth version if you can - it is much easier to use and seems to have loads more pins on it. Also the addition of the geographical features makes it all the more fun.
Complain about this postHonestly, I'm not trying to dominate this thread but I am so excited and I do want everyone else to see how wonderful this is too. I've just discovered (with the help of 12 year old boy, naturally) that if you click on the pins on the Google Earth version, they magically expand into several - I found my own postcode this way!
Complain about this postWilliam @21 half a mile out, Ed @23 four miles out: that's nothing - BT52 1NA (not mine, incidentally) in Coleraine is showing up just outside Bristol, 300 miles away!
Complain about this post"Once it is installed on your computer you can view the map by clicking here."
I can't - I get a pile of junk. Yes, Google Earth is installed.
Mac OS X 10.4.11
Sid
Complain about this postI'm totally sold on Google Earth as the best way to view this huge amount of info. Thx to all for your patience - yes there are plenty of glitches..some poor old so and so from SE19 has ended up at the northern tip of Muckle Flugga and yes there are rogue codes here and there. We think we know why this is and are working on a fix. RachelG - whoever you are - thx too for your encouragement..really pleased to hear that you share our excitement at all of this. Again, if you can't find your postcode just yet - we are working on it - we had the best part of 500 new ones in the post alone, but we will get there.
Complain about this postSlightly puzzled as to why I have to save the map to view it if I click the link.
While the image on the blog at the moment shows me the environs of Brussels. Lots of PM listeners there? A good sign if that's so - maybe the EU regards it as a must.
Complain about this postWhat method do you use for converting postcodes to physical locations on Google Earth? I know you've got a massive task, but around my home town - Inverness, Scotland - we're all IV..., but I see BA9, (Shaftesbury area), LN6 (Lincoln), BL2, GL8, RM11, LE11, LE2, AL10, DT1, HR4...
Complain about this postIt's a fascinating exercise, but if it's all as inaccurate as my area, the worth of it is suspect!
Sent in over a week ago - nothing showing anywhere near my area.
As a survey it seems as useful as a chocolate tea-pot
Complain about this postRe (39): isn't BA9 Wincanton, as in near Bath (hence the BA?)
And all you people in the UK whingeing about not seeing your flags yet - at least there are some in the UK...I'm in Rome, and Italy doesn't appear (at least as far as my software will let me see) any yet....but I'm optimistic that we'll be there soon!
Complain about this postsorry to be boring but yo have put my post code pointer in the wrong place. it's our company post code and is unique to us. it is SW1V 2SS and is on the south east corner of Vauxhall Bridge Rd and Regency St.
Complain about this postIf you're relying on Google Maps to place the postcodes for you you should be warned that it can be a tad unreliable at times if run from a script. I've got a customer whose offices we tried to place on a map simply by feeding Google Maps a set of postcodes. It simply wasn't reliable. In the end we switched to latitude and longitude and even which is better but still not perfect.
Complain about this postMy Christmas plans were going so smoothly, but now I've been relocated a couple of miles east by your locator and I can't get a removals lorry before Christmas for love nor money.
Complain about this postI do feel sorry for you PM folk. Fancy letting us see this as 'work in progress'. Whose idea was that? Management? Ha!
Anyway - never mind about postcodes, I can see my new shed on the map!
Complain about this postWe already have a script that pattern matches and then rips data out of email and writes it to the Google API xml markers file.
Would be able to process all 20,000+ emails in about half an hour.
Wouldn't want the job of inputting the snail mail data though!
Good job guys, fantastic to see the map so far and really looking forward to the 'finished project'
Complain about this postMost strange.....
The original Isle of Man pins have gone.... and have been replaced with B91 and HG1 codes...
Good - but must try harder next time!
Complain about this postWhat a fantastic idea of PMs to show where people listen. I cannot find mine though on the map.
Complain about this postEddie, please email the location where you are having a strop whilst reading the blog.
Complain about this postTodays PM Newsletter;
"We're very excited about our Postcode Map. It now contains more than eight thousand postcodes...with more than 12,000 to go. We've improved it too: now you can swoop over the country, and by clicking on each pin, lots of new information pops up. We'll explain more on the programme tonight, but if you can't wait, go to /blogs/ipm/2007/12/map_listeners.shtml" i.e. this page
So on looking I find a peevish blog.
Ironic - the 大象传媒's continued (seemingly ad nauseam) gushing desire for information is directly proportional to the inability to process it effectively in meaningful time. And the liverish nature of some Mr. Mair's responses does little to convince me he considers licence payers worthy of respect. If you invite your core listeners to participate, at least be nice to them, even if you are frustrated that they don't read what you say. Or is it "cheap content, but we really don't value you that much"?
Bah Humbug.
I'm afraid I'm not sold on Google Earth. Google Maps does have a reasonable grasp of UK postcodes, but Google Earth is very weak. All postcodes in my village are "dumped" in the middle of a wood across the valley. Also the name of my large village does not appear, while the names of several nearby hamlets,and even some farmhouses (sort of suburbs) do. Is there some technical reason for using Google Earth rather than Google Maps?
Complain about this postSid, me, too, or me, neither.
I did post earlier, no 502, about the download, but it hasn't appeared. But I'm not going to complain.
Complain about this postHey - someone lives near me who listens - you should offer a contacting service so we can get together! (errm, I am happily married by the way...)
Complain about this postEr, so how does one install ipm_map.kmz then? My machine says it doesn't recognise the file extension! Help please!!
Complain about this postHmmmm......last time I checked, my car didn't have a post code. So what do you want? Home? Office? or the garage midway between the two where I stop for coffee and a bacon-buttie?
Complain about this postSC (50) we've gone to great lengths to give out accurate information at all times...including that it would take weeks to put up all the postcodes. Few programmes want or get such a large and welcome response from their audience. We regularly get comments that might be deemed negative, but we reckon they are fair comment. It's what blogging is about. If however someone is going to rush to the blog and then rush into print expressing their disappointment at something we have clearly explained, then they will have to accept some criticism too. You mistake honest criticism for "strop". Goodness! We're not people's punchbags. Sorry if that disappoints.
Complain about this postFantastic idea but unfortunately the Postcodes are all lumped together by the first 4 characters (or first characters and numerics, ignoring the last lot of characters)
Complain about this postie
BA2 6QH
BA2 6AJ
BA2 6BS
BA2 6HF
BA2 6JH
BA2 6RL
BA2 6SH
all are on one spot presumably one of the postcodes, but not mine. About a mile away.
This might work in the wilds of Scotland but is not much use when we are down to street level.
Could this be because Google was ivented for the US where zip codes are all numeric?
I may be being very dim, but is the link to enter your postcode not working at present?
Complain about this post4.30pm Wed 19th.
Kind regards
Avid Radio 4 fan
Ian
Mr.Mair. (56) Thanks for the response. I don't believe I'm mistaking "honest criticism" for strop.
Why would you feel it necessary to criticise, honestly or otherwise, your valued listeners and bloggers? Even if you do consider them worthy of it?
In other circumstances normally both you and Mr.Humphreys would suggest it better to respond to the actual questions, in this case on IT content, IT procedures, lack of sensitivity in analysis, apparent dependence on manual data entry, reliance on Google downloads and Microsoft OS .
Set yourselves up, don't deliver and then criticise the listener comment. Nobody forced you to embark on this excercise. And to suggest you are being treated as "punchbags" does seem a little precious.
Complain about this postBut I'm sure the blog will speak for itself.
I don't see any markers for France yet. Have you decided not to include this paradise of expats?
Complain about this postSC (59) criticism...for the...um...reason I outlined in my previous post.
The actual questions were not one in the original post, which is the one I responded to. I'm responsible for my response, not the 大象传媒's IT.
And one more time: we're doing just what we said we would do. We're doing just what we are constantly updating people about. If the sense of that is lost on some people, I can't be responsible for that.
People's comments always speak for themselves, I find.
Complain about this postJohn 60 - they are there...give Google earth a go. I saw lots of pins in France and Spain
Complain about this post