NewsMap works in the following way:

1. Connects to NPR's API and pulls the full text feed for Most Emailed
2. Cycles through the stories and passes all text fields (title, teaser, text) through to the Yahoo! PlaceMaker applicatoin
3. PlaceMaker finds related locations for the stories and returns them to the application.
4. Takes each location entry and places it on a Google Map, associated to the story from which it came.
5. The app then repeats for NYTimes, using their Most Emailed RSS feed.
6. This could then easily be extended to work with other news providers.
7. This could also be extended to allow feed designations to be selectable (rather than hard-coded).

The first version of code is up on GitHub at http://github.com/danieljacobson/NewsMap/tree/master.
For questions or thoughts about this, email me at daniel at danieljacobson.com.

Produced July 5, 2009 danieljacobson.com