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The CTA and Google announcement yesterday (and the large story in the Tribune this morning) has been driving traffic to my CTA Google Maps Mashup. I created and maintain a map that plots CTA stations on top of the Google maps API making it easy to find businesses near a particular location. It has served its purpose well since it first premiered in July of 2005 (I made the official announcement in October of that same year after it started to gain some internet publicity). Since then it has seen its fair share of peaks in traffic as other blogs and sites made mention of it. See here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

It looks like this is going to be another one of those days. Yesterday alone tastypopsicle.com saw a spike in traffic resulting in 465 visits (about 330 more than average). I expect to see as many as 500-600 hits today. However, this time all of the traffic is ironically enough from Google. Just do a search for "CTA Google Chicago" or "Google CTA" or any other sort of combination of those terms and you'll notice that my CTA Google Maps Mashup is the number one result.

Of course I realize that my map is not what these people are looking for. But even so I have noticed a large number of visitors are sticking around which means they at least find the map interesting.

And my map should get even more interesting. I plan to incorporate the transit trip planner into the map much the same way that I have incorporated the ability to find businesses near an address. I'll probably try a few ideas to see what works the best but I'd love to know what fellow Chicagoans and visitors to Chicago think. My map serves all of you who visit it and use it. And it's 100% ad-free (although I have had some thoughts about that - I won't lie. The spike in traffic today is reason enough to consider adding ads.) Contact me with your thoughts and comments.

In the end I do it because I like to do it and I find problem solving through programming challenging and rewarding. And if this partnership between the CTA and Google means the eventual death on my map then I welcome it. It means that these guys have finally caught on to what people really want.

Here's a few of the popular Chicago/CTA sites that are chimming in as well:

• Chicago Business
• CTA Tattler
• Chicagoist

I'm interested in what you have to say about what I have to say - get what I'm saying? If you're already a member of tastypopsicle.com then it's very easy. Just make sure you logged on from the home page. If you're not a member then it's no big deal. You can join tastypopsicle.com or you can simply leave your own comments. I truly hope you eNjoy using this!

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