MetaCarta World Map Goes Live

A new website enables users to search for news stories from around the world by location and theme.

The GeoSearch News service from MetaCarta claims to have articles from over 1,400 global news sources available to search using its Google Maps application.

Visitors can zoom in on the world map to select a place or can type in precise locations or topics to search for related items.

The website uses AP and Reuters extensively due to deals with both wire services, but MetaCarta also searches a range of newspaper and blog sources.

For example, a search performed today for Preston UK revealed, from the past month, four relevant articles from three sources - the Telegraph, thisislondon, and the Herald Sun in Australia.



MetaCarta’s vice president of content services Rick Hutton said the new site “combines the unique power of geographic search with keyword search and is the single place to find current news stories, from a wide variety of sources, about any place, quickly,” reports Journalism.co.uk.

British reactions to the website and its relevance to local newspapers can be viewed at the Bristol Media blog and on Paul Bradshaw’s post for Poynter Online.