Google Rolls Out Places - put your place on the map

Via Google LAt/Long blog, Google has today rebranded Google Local business center as Google Places. Now with millions of listings, here comes the revenue model – think Freeminum! About Places… Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners. Google reports that some 4 million place pages have already been claimed (if you have a business you should claim yours) and now the company is offering advertising opportunities enabling business owners to get higher or premium page listings (starting at $25 per month). One option I really like is that Google is enabling business owners to easily grab a custom QR code (although I suspect many owners will have no idea what a QR code is!!) then they can display it on premises so smartphone users equipped with a barcode scanner can easily scan the code. You can access Google Places at http://www.google.com/lbc

Google Maps Directions Gets help with addition of Street Views

Are you a Google Maps directions fan? I know I couldn't get to and from our ball tournaments every week-end without them! Well now, users of this service will notice that Street View is integrated with directions. At each turning point in your list of directions you can now view a street view image of the intersection (if available). A nice touch to a very useful service. I know I could have used this a couple of weeks ago when I had written directions but had some confusion at an off-ramp. To use this feature simply ask for directions from Google Maps and click the little camera icon beside each drive segment.

nautical charts overlaid on Google maps

This is cool from NOAA... view raster nautical charts overlaid on Google maps... nice! See http://demo.geogarage.com/noaa/

London Profiler themes maps with freeware GMap (Google map) Creator

This interesting story comes out of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London courtesy of the BBC. Using a freeware app know as the Google Map Creator, a team of clever geographers has developed the the London Profiler website. According to the team, here you can visualise your neighbourhood's profile using different area classifications through the Google Map interface. All the themes have been created with GMap Creator. Think amazing, thematic mapping served up via google maps. About the application...
The Google Map Creator is a freeware application designed to make thematic mapping using Google Maps simpler. The application takes a shapefile containing geographic areas linked with attributes and automatically generates a working Google Maps website from the data. It does this by pre-creating all the necessary files and saving them into a directory. Publishing the map on the web is then just a matter of copying files onto a web server, allowing Google Maps to be used with the majority of ISPs. See http://www.londonprofiler.org/

FrontDoor real estate Mashup from HGTV powered by Google Maps

Another fine real estate mashup is now available from the people at HGTV - enter Frontdoor.com (great name!) The site is well designed and provides a great mashup of real estate listings which is easy to navigate and has a great foundation created thanks to the use of the Google maps API to power the site's interactive mapping... once again a nice simple, functional resource that's easy to navigate and appears to do what you would expect... nice job! See http://www.frontdoor.com/

Google Terrain Maps and some cool effects

I'm glad to see the Terrain button option now available on Google maps - see the upper left area next to the Satellite option. This enables users to now view a topo map style rendering with 3D hillshading. At first it may not be that impressive, if your in a flat area, however, once you move to an area with relief (like by Estes Park) the effect is very slick. This is a nice start... now I want to be able to create a 3D hillshading effect by draping the terrain over a streetmap view, maybe use a slider to change the transparency, then I also want to tilt the map and spin it around like in Google earth.. no doubt that's coming down the road I bet! Nice stuff Google. A tip, try adding some google mapplets, like contour lines to the terrain for some cool effects!

The Google Terrain map option


Viewing a Terrain view near Estes Park, CO

Add some contours using a Google Mapplet fur some cool effects!

Wind on the water mashups

Thanks to John over at LizardTech for sharing this cool mashup of interest to those needing wind.. maybe you surf, windsurf ,fly kytes or maybe kyteboard... the application so far has been developed for the Pac NW (Washington and B.C, Canada) and California users and shows hot recreational spots where wind is an important factor. Click on a station location and retrieve real-time wind-speed data, barometric pressure, Web cameras, and forecasts.. nice! See:
Washington - http://www.windonthewater.com/washington.htm
California - http://www.windonthewater.com/california.htm

Google Maps adds coverage to 54 countries - Asia gets 3x more data

Reports from the Google Maps team confirm that the online map service has just added additional data covering 54 countries including a 3-fold increase in coverage for Asia and Mexico city now covered. The list of newly acquired data include: Afghanistan, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), Mongolia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Timor-Leste, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen. According to Dave Barth, Google Product Manager... "this is just the beginning..." - see the lat/long blog for details - http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-of-world-for-you-to-explore.html

Putting a Google Map on your site / Blog is a snap

Google has so many fantastic tools but its hard to keep them all straight. One great score is the ability to easily embed a map search onto your web page. One way is to use the Google Map Search Wizard - use this app to easily and quickly put a Searchable Map on Your Web Page.
Embed a searchable Google Map on your web page and let your users find places around you. Customize how the map should be displayed, and this wizard will write the code for you. See
Here to add a map to your blog or website. The sample map below shows you the Googleplex on a map. The code is quite lengthy but its generated using a very simple to use wizard.

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The anti-nuke Google mashup from Action West

An interesting Google maps mashup at http://www.stopnewnukes.org/ from the team at Peace Action West - this one maps all the nuclear facilities in the country (do we really want to be sharing all this info and making it so readily available?) and then provides additional info as well as a link to sign a petition to stop the facility. Obviously this resource caters to the anti-nukes crowd but you see they are we're going with it. A nice UI and clever app for this organization - please note: I'm simply sharing info about the map mashup and don't endorse the anti-site or nuclear facilities in any way - I'll just stay neutral here! This takes me back to my poli-sci days and I have to admit that I'm likely from the camp where the best defense is a good offence!

Tutorial - Create a Google MyMap, add your flickr photos from a Mapplet, then embed

As of this week, adding a Google map, or even better, your Google "MyMaps", to your webpage is a snap (pardon the pun). You know how simple it is to embed a youTube video into your blog? Well, it's that simple. Here's a short tutorial to show you how simple it actually is. We'll create a custom google MyMap, add a Mapplet, embed some photos from our flickr account, save the map, and embed it within a website (in this article)... no problemmo! To finish I'll offer up a couple of photo geotagging tools for those of you with GPS-enabled cell phones and a tool for mannual geotagging for those with no access to GPS. If you enjoy Google maps, flickr, and geotagging photos then this tutorial is for you.

Embed your Google map (MyMap) into your blog, or website with youtube-ish ease

Another cool tidbit today out of the Google camp is embeddable maps in your blog.. think embed a youtube video into your blog and you'll know what I mean. Google has made it way simple to now embed your custom google maps (MyMaps) into your website. Simply open a map, click the "link to this page" link (upper right), copy the code, then embed into your map! Screenshot of this is below and the actual embedded map is provided at the bottom.. way cool.. thanks Google Maps team!

Embedding your gogole map is now a breeze, with youTube embed-like functionality!

See my Google MyMap below! Note: I've altered the default size

View Larger Map

The Windsor, CO Police Speed Trap Google map mashup!

Yesterday I wish I would have had access to some known police hangouts via Google maps.. heck, there likely is a mashup out there that does this (there's one for everything else). After 25 years of clean driving I managed to get pulled over doing 40 in a 30 zone (I know, big freaking deal!) To help in my rehabilitation I've added a Police Speed Trap zone to MyMaps and maybe it will save some other unlucky sucker from falling into the same "trap" that I did. FYI, have you checked out the icons that are now at your fingertips in Google maps lately? Its a breeze to share a map like this with others, taking about one minute to create. Now if all of Windsor can pitch in and help map the rest of the traps we'll have a really useful resource ;0)

Loads of cool icons are now available for placing on your MyMap

Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries - integrate these data into your Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft mashups

Maponics, LLC announced today the full release of Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries™. Until now, websites offering local search, including social marketing, real estate and Web 2.0 sites, have had to provide search results based upon ZIP Code or city name. By integrating Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries, search results for hundreds of cities can now be filtered and even mapped by universally accepted city neighborhood boundaries. The result - more relevant local search results, more loyal site visitors and higher ad revenue. More about the dataset... Covering hundreds of the top US cities, the Maponics Neighborhood Boundaries database includes all latitude and longitude coordinates for each neighborhood polygon. It is specifically designed for easy integration into Google™, Yahoo!®, or Microsoft® map mash-ups or into back-end data analysis applications.

The idea of mapping by neighborhood is a very clever one and I belive offers to amazing opportunities to the users of these data. Given the social and economic characteristics that residents of a "neighborhood" share this could indeed truly become a very powerful and useful data product... I can't wait to see where this goes as we see apps developed based on neighborhood data. See www.maponics.com

Google Maps new draggable driving directions - so sweet, so easy

Have you seen Google Maps new draggable driving directions? Its very clever and amazing to se how all these pieces to the puzzle are coming together. Now with more "draggable" functionality users can easily update their routes to get more personal and logical results. Imagine this... you want to go from Seattle to San Fran and ask for teh default directions using "maps". Chances are that you'll get routed down I-5, however, maybe you want to make sure you spend a couple of days along the coast through Washington and Oregon... no problem. Simply enter a couple of locations along the coast that you want to visit (maybe Long Beach, and Astoria) - just drag your route over to the 101 and your route is updated. Also, try simply right-clicking to provide input for the common "directions from here" and "to here" functionality.. its very fast and handy. Be sure to give it a try - http://maps.google.com

ebook on the Google Maps API

This comes from our friend Eric at Geospatial Training... The fourth edition of our ebook on the Google Maps API covers everything you need to know about programming Google Maps to create dynamic web mapping applications with today's hottest mapping technology. You will learn how to create maps, add map controls for user interactions (zooming, and panning),
programmatically alter the map extent, add points of interest to the map, add custom icons, geocode addresses on the fly, read addresses from a database or XML file, display aerial photography, AJAX fundamentals, and event programming. New material in the fourth edition includes instructions on adding driving directions and traffic overlays in Google Maps, integration of Google Earth KML files, efficient management of large number of markers, and
much more.

To download a free copy of "Mashup Mania with Google Maps", please visit our
website at http://www.geospatialtraining.com.

GeoImmersive video from IMC - the technology behind Google Street View imagery

Spotlight on GeoImmersive video from IMC - Terrestrial Views From Every Angle - Since 2005, IMC has been capturing 360 degree georeferenced spherical video of North America's major cities enabling everyone to experience terrestrial views from every angle. The company, currently getting loads of exposure for providing Google with their cool and sometimes controversial Street View data has been driving the country in VW Bugs housing the IMC Dodeca camera which capture the 360 degree imagery. According to the company, they are expanding their coverage of North American cities and expanding to Europe. Initially developed for the energy and utilities sector, GeoImmersive video from Immersive Media Company (IMC) is being adopted by many users for many interesting uses. This brief spotlight looks at the company, the device, the uses of the device, and the benefits to users

Slashdot It!

Google maps + Digg = diggmap

An interesting new real-time information provider is up and running with this mashup .Get the latest DIGGs displayed on a Google Map - think twittervision for DIGG - see http://www.bittrees.com/diggmap/

Local Search Control for Google Maps

This API is quite cool as it enables mashup developers to integrate a local search control into their map.. slick! From the post... The Local Search control for Google Maps is an implementation of GControl that performs AJAX Search API style Local Search on an existing map. See Herel

A Mashup Advertising Engine to help monetize map mashups - monetize your map and maximize the use of screen real estate

Google has laid the foundation for map mashup development -- more tools, more exposure... etc... Now there's a solution (Beta) to help put more cash in the pockets of developers and map publishers. Those looking to advertise on mashups will find a really cool service that will get their ads served in a user-friendly, based on the geographic location being viewed by the map user.

Recall A Couple of Weeks Back

At Where2.0 and the recent Google Developer Conference Google announced a number of enhancements to their mapping solutions and APIs. Of particular interest was a focus on bringing more attention to mashups and making mashups more widely available to the Google search user base. Case in point... the google mashup editor, mapplets and google gadgets. Google VP Engineering, Jeff Huber noted at Developer Day that Developers are now creating apps in a 10th of the time that was required back in the day! Developers have access to more APIs, simple to use developer tools and web publishing environments. Of interest... the new model of application development includes open source, standards, mashups, and advertising.

Bringing more traffic to your mashup

Mashup Editor -- with this tool creating mashups with Google couldn't be easier. In a few lines of code and one click of a button you can publish your mashups for the world to see. Simply put, more mashups, simple publishing and sharing. Think of it as an online editor for creating your mashup with just a few lines of XML code. Test, deploy, and launch is what people want to do (experimental at this time).

Gadgets -- Recall commscore ranks google’s network as the largest on the web – half a billion users each month! So now we have the google gadgets API… popular, an open model, more than 100k gadgets created to date. Using the gadget page creator users can now put gadgets within their blogger weblog - take a gadget and embed it into your website you see where this is coming from now? Developers who create and author gadgets are inviting more traffic to their mashups. The formula: mashups + gadgets = $. With Gadgets your mashup is now widely available to more users

Mapplets - perhaps most significant to map-mashup developers is the launch of Google Mapplets... think mashups of mashups. Combining the gadgets API with the maps API Google is now enabling exploration and discovery of your content. Imagine combining your mapplets.. like hotel and weather data then toss in a crime data mashup. Enabling mashups of mashups. Once again, this is a great solution designed to bring more traffic and users to your mashup.

But where's the money?

A common question people ask is where is the money in mashups? Well, no doubt many developers are now farming out their services and earning a good living doing so... kudos! Some are also making money by authoring weblogs and writing books. But what about the revenues generated from all those people using your clever mashup map? Obviously many are embedding Google adsense ads within their web pages, however, this currently falls short of maximizing revenues based on traffic and usage. If you've ever panned and zoomed around a mashup map you've likely noticed those familiar google ads being served up on the page. One big problem though... as users zoom and move around the map advertisements don't update. Also, the ads are very often not relevant to the geographic area on the map or the topic of the web page.

A Solution... $$
Now that Google is offering a number of clever ways to increase the number of users of your mashup how to increase revenues for publishers? Lat49 is coming out with a very cool solution for mashup developers and those looking to earn some revenues from their websites and mashups. The Lat49 advertising engine will enable users to easily incorporate the engine's functionality into a mashup (regardless of which API being used - Google maps, Microsoft Live Search, Yahoo! maps, etc...) Developers will have the flexibility of embedding either text or graphic version of ads (or both) and have a little creative licensing over where and how the ads appear... the map author will be able to serve standard IAB ad formats and positioned in a user-friendly location on the map. Advertisers purchase their ads by geography (more on that later) with ads being served at either local, neighborhood, urban, or a branded level. The ad displayed to a user will depend on the map zoom-level and map center. As a user pans around or zooms in and out the ad(s) will update automatically... kaching $$$! Publishers need only embed a couple of lines of javascript in their app then customize the code accordingly. Revenues will be shared and get this... will be based on the number of ads being served (not simply on click-throughs). Additional revenues will be possible based on ad performance but is apparently not necessary to rake in some green. Obviously with ads updating regularly and changing with the user's map position performance will no doubt be very good compared to the current ad solutions available.

Typical banner ads that you currently would see on a website using a mashup - banner ads don't update or change when the position on the AJAX map changes. Another common practice would be to position Google adwords to surround the map. Map see is from Rentslicer.com


Using the Lat49 solution an ad (text or graphic) can be positioned on the map so it doesn't use up any valuable real estate. Various sizes can be displayed and the ad will change as the map center moves - notice the Lat49 graphic positioned where an ad would be seen.

Lat49 is currently in Beta and developers are encouraged to contact the company to help with the initial testing. More on this can be found at http://www.lat49.com

Thanks to Tiffany and Chloe for giving me a first look at this very cool solution. I'll be really curious to see which mashups take the initiative to jump on this one first!