There’s been an amazing amount of interest in the new InMaps service from LinkedIn. The great thing about this visual feature is that it has by-passed language barriers and circled the world. If you don’t believe me, just have a quick search on Twitter for InMaps – and you’ll find many people, every hour, sharing their InMaps with the world. See the screengrab below with the tweets in many languages in a 20 minute period on Sunday.

It got me thinking. Is there a way of seeing your contacts geographically in a visual form? With the magic of Google (and a little help from Quora) – these things are never too far away.

My discovery was a Beta software called MapMyConnections. It’s a cool little visualisation software that uses the LinkedIn api. See results below from my test of the system. I think it’s another useful way of looking at my Personal Network (although I am a little concerned about the 24 people who seem to be on a boat – or overboard – between Liverpool and the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea!)

The application is the work of Jan Willem van Eck. He describes himself on Twitter as “crossculturalist, builds bridges, geo-minded, explorer (strateGIST at Esri Netherlands); social media enthusiast. for the love of geography”. Sounds a great guy – and he seems to have built this in his spare time with limited resources. Take a bow!

Do give MapMyConnections a spin – and please do zoom in to my map and try to explain the 24 connections who seem to be all at sea!