Charting The Storyline

From The New York Times:

To promote their upcoming season of “The Sopranos,” HBO, a division of Time Warner, and Deep Focus, an online marketing agency, have created an interactive map of New Jersey, using satellite maps from Google, and have highlighted important points of the most recent season’s storyline. The map has about 15 icons in specific areas where scenes took place. When the user clicks on an icon, the scene plays in a pop-up window, which also supplies a description and a list of characters.

Ian Schafer, the founder and chief executive of Deep Focus, said Google gave permission to use its satellite maps, which have detailed satellite imagery of the earth, without charge.
Seth Godin, an author and speaker on marketing, called HBO’s interactive map a perfect example of a way to get online users excited about a TV show. “The real home run, and the reason this isn’t just a silly stunt, is that ideas no longer spread directly from mainstream media to individuals, there’s a middleman now and that middleman is word of mouth.”