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Finding your way with your iPod

By Julie Clothier for CNN

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The Seoul subway map is one of 22 that have been posted on Bright's Web site.

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(CNN) -- When Web designer Bill Bright posted a map of the New York subway on his Web site for people to download to their iPods, he had no idea how popular the free service would become.

Now the 28-year-old has put subway maps on his site for 22 cities. He estimates 20,000 people have downloaded the maps since he started posting them on August 9.

"Once I published it on my site, a friend put a link on her Blog. The next thing I knew I was getting a good amount of traffic," he told CNN.

"Then professional Blogs -- sites run by businesses -- began putting the link on their sites and I started getting requests for other maps."

Bright said London was the most requested map and in response, he has recently posted the city's Tube map on the site.

The service works by slicing the maps into pieces. When the images are viewed as a photo gallery on the iPod Photo or iPod Nano, they show the entire map.

He said the maps also worked on some other MP3 players and PDAs but were built with the iPod Photo in mind because it was originally meant for Bright's personal use.

"This is one of those ideas that other people are telling me, 'Why didn't I think of that.' I am actually surprised that I thought of it. It's a very simple idea," he said.

Bright's Web site has also caught the attention of transport authorities and he has had to pull both the New York and Chicago maps while he negotiates the cost of licenses to publish the maps.

He has pulled down the San Francisco map and built his own version but hopes not to have to do that for New York because it is much bigger and more complex.

"This was never meant to turn into a legal battle. It's great that people are benefiting from this service because that's the whole point of making it available for free," he said.

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