This article explores the popular application of global positioning systems (GPS), mobile directional devices, interactive mapping tools and social networks feeding a boom in mapping. Community-based geographers are mapping new subjects in new ways. Mapping, the author maintains, has become a new language, and a avenue for discovering new ways to interpret the world and network with like-minded people. Examples are provided from the Google Earth Outreach initiative, which supports nonprofits to use the programme for advocacy and activism, to Privacy International's Map of Surveillance Socieites around the World, Greenmap Systems, and OpenStreetMap, which engage volunteers to monitor and map local features with GPS tracking devices and upload these features to the Internet.
