Featured Mashup: Reuters AlertNet
Where? http://www.alertnet.org/
Developer: Wrenhill, Ltd., IDV Solutions, and Reuters teams

The Site

Reuters AlertNet is a web-based humanitarian news network launched by the Reuters Foundation in 1997. Its goal is to keep relief professionals, journalists, and the wider public up-to-date on humanitarian crises around the globe. AlertNet attracts upwards of 1 million visitors per month, and has a network of 400 contributing humanitarian organizations. A core feature of the website is the use of an interactive map to locate current crises and to retrieve the latest Reuters news feeds and other information from the chosen area.

Why the Windows Live Platform?

Developed by Microsoft Gold Partner IDV Solutions, the interactive map is based on Microsoft® Virtual Earth™, part of the Windows Live™ network of Internet services. Compelling advantages of Virtual Earth included its ease of deployment and a rich database of remote regions and villages across the globe. IDV integrated Virtual Earth with a variety of real-time data feeds that allow a user to visually “mine” for headlines in real time by simply zooming into a country or region.

Programming Environment

The site’s user interface is developed with the Microsoft .NET framework and Microsoft server products. The interactive map is based on an AJAX framework with JavaScript calls and asynchronous XML data retrieval. Content integration (developed by Wrenhill, Ltd) is based on open-source solutions developed in Mason, a Perl-based web application framework.

Under the Hood

The following code snippet shows how a JavaScript request for map data results in an XML response.

JavaScript call:

javascript:updateMapInfo(document.getElementById('RightPanel').elements['Crisis'],
 document.getElementById('RightPanel').elements['Weather']); 

XML response (not all data is shown):

<layout>   
  <map id="MainMap">    
    <layer id="countrypolygonLayer" type="polygon">    
      <poly id="342" stroke="#004d9f" stroke-opacity="0.7" fill="#004d9f" fill-opacity="0.5">    
        <attrs name="Angola" fillId="1" iso="AO" north="-5.85632750177319" east="24.0844454321804"     
            south="-18.0163905130981" west="11.7312454206756" />    
        <part>23.98621 -10.87046 24.08445 -11.40278 23.96736 -11.66215 24.05069 -12.39243 23.88701      
            -12.76361 24.01945 -12.99945 17.93146       
      
            (more coordinates)     
      
            20.33153 -6.91473 20.62975 -6.91388 20.54872 -7.28362 10.95834 23.85861 -11.02715 23.98621      
            -10.87046</part>    
      </poly>    
     
     (more countries)
      
    </layer>    
  </map>    
</layout>