September 18, 2009

Bulk Listing Verification Now Available for Google Maps Local Business Listings

Business owners have been able to bulk upload their local listings to Google Maps but have had to verify them individually. Until now. Google is now providing the opportunity to bulk verify bulk uploads.

Said bulk uploads must meet the following criteria:

Accurate and up-to-date data
Minimum of 10 bulk uploaded listings already in business owners' Local Business Center account
Full compliance with our Local Business Center Quality Guidelines
Submitted by the owner of all businesses listed
All businesses have only been submitted by a single user

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 10, 2009

Police Use Online Mapping Services to Help Fight Crime

USA Today has a story on how police departments across the US are adding a new tool to their crime-fighting arsenal: online maps. A few startups out there are using public records to map out crime, which helps police departments track crime trends.

Police departments are then able to send out alerts to the community. The knowledge empowers communities to keep an eye out. It's a modern Neighborhood Watch program.

Almost 1,000 police departments have signed up for these services. Providers include CrimeReports.com, CrimeMapping.com, and SpotCrime.com.

Police have also used existing online maps to creatively solve crimes. Google Street View was used to help locate a missing child this past January.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 3, 2009

MapQuest Launches On-Map Search Tool: Find Coffee On Your Route

MapQuest has enhanced its Business Locator with an On-Map Search Tool. The tool helps users find businesses along routes they plan with MapQuest. This will help the coffee-obsessed such as myself find coffee stops along their travel routes.

Below is a screenshot of a route from Raleigh, NC to Durham, NC. Notice the icon toolbar on the top right side. You can scroll for different search categories such as groceries and accommodations.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 25, 2008

MapQuest Partners with Citysearch for Comprehensive Search Results

In February, AOL announced a partnership with Citysearch to distribute its data across its network. Now, MapQuest has announced that it is integrating Citysearch's data to provide more comprehensive search results. Features such as reviews, menus, and photos will be available for select listings.

When you conduct a search, if you see an gold icon with a star on it, that's your clue to click for the new results. I was unable to find an icon after several searches, but here's a screenshot from MapQuest:

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2008

Microsoft's Live Maps Schools Google, Yahoo, Ask and AOL in Georgia Mapping

If you've been keeping up with the conflict in South Ossetia, perhaps you were curious about where the contentious events were occurring. I hope you ended up at Microsoft's Live Search Maps, because it is the only map of the top 5 search engines that could find both Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's self-declared capital, as well as Abkhazia, another separatist region where Russia has opened a second front.

Live Search Maps - Ts'khinvali

Live Search Maps - Abkhazia

Yahoo was the second best map. It found Tskhinvali after I typed in Microsoft's suggested spelling of Ts'khinvali. But the map was extremely zoomed in and you didn't have a sense of where you were until you zoomed out. It found Abkhazia with ease.

Yahoo Maps - Tskhinvali (can't find)

Yahoo Maps - Ts'khinvali (Microsoft's suggested spelling)

Yahoo Maps - Ts'khinvali zoomed out

Yahoo Maps - Abkhazia

Google found Ts'khinvali (even without the apostrophe), but an initial search for Abkhazia landed me in Glendale, California, at a business listing for an institute dedicated to policy in the Georgian region. Eventually, after searching for Ts'khinvali, a subsequent search for Abkhazia at least landed me in the correct region. But the problem was there were several results sprinkled across the troubled Georgia. Google has said it has had a hard time finding satisfying data for the region. They might want to try whatever Microsoft is having.

Google Maps - Ts'khinvali

Google Maps - Abkhazia, Glendale California

Google Maps - Abkhazia, Georgia

Ask.com's Maps and AOL's MapQuest couldn't find either city.

Posted by Nathania Johnson at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

November 30, 2007

SEW Experts: Local Search: Competing All Over the Map - Part 2

While Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft battle for online mapping domination, another competitor is fortifying its position quietly off to the side. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search: Competing All Over the Map - Part 2," local search expert Michael Boland looks at EveryScape, a new 3-D mapping beta site from MapQuest that could change everything you thought you knew about map-based advertising and local search.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 16, 2007

SEW Experts: Local Search: Competing All Over the Map

Google Maps, launched with AJAX functionality, draggable maps, and satellite imagery in late 2005, started an "arms race" in development of new features and functionality. In today's Vertical Challenge column, "Local Search: Competing All Over the Map," local search expert Michael Boland looks at the many ways competitors have raised the bar with real-time traffic reports, multipoint routing, social features, geotagged video and images, personalization, and most recently, 3-D mapping.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink

March 9, 2007

More on Google's Local Business Center: Solving the "Last Block Problem"

After thinking more about the enhancements to Google's Local Business Center, I realized a benefit that was overlooked in one of the less glamorous feature developments amongst the set.

As reported in a post earlier this week, one of the developments to Local Business Center is the ability for businesses to change or edit their location on a Google map if it is incorrect or outdated.

At first I thought this will find a marginal amount of utility for businesses and Google alike. Then I remembered something about local online mapping; the last block problem. This occurs when a mapping engine places a business or residence on a map based on its address; but the best it can do with that address is extrapolate its position within a given block.

For example, if your address is 1550 Lombard Street in San Francisco, an online map will put you right in the middle of the 1500 block, on the north side of the street. This is probably where you live, but in some cases this can be off the mark, and can have varying degrees of error depending on the length or density of your block (think rural areas). So this new feature for the first time lets businesses literally move their address marker to the right spot.

This falls in line with one of the reasons for the rest of the enhancements to Local Business Center; to improve the quality of Google's data. Google currently gets its data from a number of sources including commercial database vendors. The additional info from businesses themselves is hoped to sharpen this data with defined categories, custom attributes, etc.

The location feature in particular, interestingly works on a problem that has gotten very little attention. It's not a huge problem and this isn't a groundbreaking solution, but it's a step in the right direction to improve data quality. It's also in line with many of the user generated content initiatives (business generated content in this case) that are springing up all over the local search space in order to deepen content and improve SEO.

We'll have more analysis of Google's Local Business Center and the strategies behind it in a SearchDay article next week.

Posted by Mike Boland at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 7, 2007

Superpages Adds Virtual Earth Maps

Superpages.com, fresh off a deal with Local.com and launch of a new sales office, has upgraded its mapping capabilities by partnering with Microsoft to use its Virtual Earth platform.

Maps will show listings for nearby businesses in up to three categories at once. A travel feature will list hotels, restaurants, and banks near a destination. Driving directions include real-time traffic data, where available.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:48 AM | Permalink

January 8, 2007

MapQuest API For All

MapQuest completed a one-two punch today with its second product launch in 5 days (last week's mobile announcement was covered here and here).

Today it released its latest mapping API, MapQuest Advantage API v5. This new version includes AJAX programming to enable dragging, panning and all of the other online mapping features that have only recently become table stakes.

This follows suit with Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! which have each released APIs for their latest mapping features. The difference is that MapQuest holds a commanding market share lead in the online mapping space (68 percent in November according to Nielsen, compared to Google Maps' 28 percent and Yahoo! Maps' 27 percent).

The company hopes to carry this lead over into emerging areas of mapping where most new business growth will take place, i.e. mobile and mashup development. Utilizing the collective wisdom and manpower of outside developers (via API release) has become a popular way to accomplish the latter.

Next comes monetization, which is well planted on Mapquest's radar screen. The company has barely scratched the surface of mobile product development and monetization according to VP and GM Jim Greiner, whom I spoke with last week.

The company is currently running a trial of click-to-call advertising on mobile devices with Ingenio, and it is also testing mobile banner ads. Limited info is available now, but trial results will be available in the first quarter according to Greiner.

Posted by Mike Boland at 8:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 4, 2007

MapQuest Enhances Mobile Mapping Products

MapQuest announced a series of mobile mapping and search enhancements today, meant to leverage the company's leading position in online mapping. The company held a 68 percent market stake in November compared to Google Maps' 28 percent and Yahoo! Maps' 27 percent, according to Nielsen.

First off, its MapQuest Mobile product will upgrade to version 2.5, including multipoint routing, walking directions, and 15 million points of interest.

These are all features currently available in MapQuest's online mapping engine which it would like to bring to the mobile environment. The company's point of interest search for one (ability to find landmarks and tourist destinations compared to only business listings) is a differentiating factor that has helped it develop and maintain its commanding market share lead.

It has done this, among other ways, by getting creative and tapping into government data sources to index locations of schools, post offices, public parks and other points of interest left behind by some mapping engines.

So far it has been able to carry this lead over into its mobile products. MapQuest mobile is compatible with 250 different cell phones from 12 carriers and it's currently the top revenue generating mobile search download in the U.S. according to Telephia

“We need to extend our reach and be on as many devices as possible,” said Alan Beigai, Mapquest Director of Wireless, during a product briefing earlier in the week. “Our goal is also to fine tune content and functionality of mobile applications to match that of the online experience.” These thoughts were echoed by MapQuest VP and GM Jim Greiner who was a featured speaker at The Kelsey Group's recent Interactive Local Media Conference.

Secondly, the company announced it will make its MapQuest Navigator mobile mapping product available on Blackberries from Sprint and Nextel. Compared to MapQuest Mobile, Navigator is a more enhanced platform for GPS enabled devices and smart phones. It features text and audio turn-by-turn directions and is marketed as having all of the functionality of an in-car navigation system in smaller (and cheaper) package.

MapQuest should get increased traction for Navigator with this increased availability and with the rising adoption of smart phones. Beigai agrees that existing smart phone users (particularly blackberry users) represent a technically savvy subset that are more likely to download and use the product than the broader mobile device user population.

“It's a prime segment for us to tap into,” he says.

Interestingly, navigation systems (like smart phones) are coming down in price and Yahoo! this week revealed plans to plant itself “on the dash".

Posted by Mike Boland at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 14, 2006

New Demographic Heatmaps From HotPads

HotPads is a map-based rental housing search site. The site has launched new heatmaps that contain interesting demographic information showing such data as age, income, percentage of renters and average rent. For example, here's per capita income in Mahattan. I have some thoughts on what this means for ad targeting on my blog.

The site previously created mashups for the November U.S. elections.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:21 AM | Permalink

November 13, 2006

Merge Historical Maps With Current World In Google Earth

Google Earth in 4D from Googling Google is a very nice catch about how Google Earth now allows you to view historical maps within the software. Want to see how people thought the world used to look, before all those satellites were taking pictures? A new layer makes this possible.

For this to work, you have to have the latest version of Google Earth, Google Earth 4 (which will kindly change your default search engine in Internet Explorer to use Google, unless you untick that box -- so pay attention if you don't want that change. For more on Google being worried about changing IE's search defaults, see my Searching Via Internet Explorer 7 & The Battle To Be The Default Search Engine post).

Next, within Google Earth, you need to activate the Rumsey Historical Maps feature. Google gives instructions here. The screenshot below also shows what to change:

Select a map, and it's placed over the existing world. For example, here's the Lewis & Clark map:

You can then zoom in for more detail, though I wish it were easier to blend the real world more with the historical map. Terrain boundaries, along with roads if you switch them on, are shown in a hard-to-see yellow. Even better would be if actual satellite images could some how be lightly ghosted behind the maps.

Here's a close up on the Lewis & Clark map:

Here's part of San Francisco from 1853:

Sadly, one of my favorite old maps, that of California as an island, isn't offered. Not to fear! The David Rumsey site, which provides maps to Google Earth, allows you to browse a much wider collection of maps. You don't need Google earth to do so, either. Of course, you can't then overlay the maps on to of current plots of geographic features and roads. Still, it's well worth a visit. Here's an example of California as island, that I was talking about:

Postscript: Garett Rogers from Googling Google sent how to get the underlying "real" world information to show through. Look at the Places sidebar. You should see an unnamed slider bar at the bottom. Don't see it? Try minimizing that window, then reopening it. Still don't see it? Go to the Layers window and select the map you've enabled. Then click off that to any other map, then quickly click back to the map. That should make the slider appear (I didn't see it at first because of this bug). Move the slider to the left slowly and the underlying "real" information will start to bleed through.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:27 AM | Permalink

November 2, 2006

GPS, Geotagging, Images and Maps

The NY Times has a long and relatively interesting article on geotagging images and mapping. It primarily discusses Flickr and, to a lesser degree, Google Earth and Picasa and other services such as TripTracker. The article also goes into the geocoding/tagging technology itself. Not discussed in the article is Microsoft's "Photosynth," which is an interesting hypothetical application and extension of all this technology.

Mapping, images (including video) and local/travel are rapidly coming together in very rich applications, as alternatives to pure text-based online navigation.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 2:01 PM | Permalink

October 24, 2006

November Elections Mashups

Maps have long been important in politics, as anyone who works in politics or watches the TV coverage on election night knows. And then there's the familiar saying, "All politics is local." Now, as reported on the Google Earth Blog, Google Earth has added "U.S. Elections Guide" and "U.S. Congressional Districts" information layers. By selecting these layers in Google Earth (not available on Google Maps) you can see boundaries of U.S. voting districts, links to information and news about the candidates, where to vote, campaign finance data and other election-related information.

Map-based real estate site HotPads has also created an interactive elections map for the coming November election. Click on any state and you can drill down on U.S. Congressional districts and information on representatives from Wikipedia and other sources. Here's an example from Florida.

I'm sure there are more out there. Let us know if you find them.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 10:50 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2006

Cool New Real Estate Tools

The real estate vertical is one of the most interesting online segments for several reasons. Among them are the tools that have been developed amid intensifying competition.

Two relatively new ones are Rentometer from iiProperty, a company that helps manage real-estate investments and rental properties, and Mapvine from a company called Rentvine.

Mapvine is a free tool that enables anyone to place map-based listings (rentals, store locations, etc.) on their sites without any technical knowledge or expertise.

Rentometer allows you to compare what you're paying to average rents in your area. For example, before my wife and I moved from San Francisco, CA to where we live currently we were paying approximately $1375 a month in rent (over four years ago). Today that looks like an incredible deal.

Rentometer also shows you the highest rents by zip and by city.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:41 AM | Permalink

September 20, 2006

Zillow Adds 'Owner-Generated' Content

Real estate search site Zillow.com has added personalization features and the ability for homeowners to publish their own information beside Zillows home-valuation "Zestimates."

A new "My Zillow" feature allows users to track homes and save other content to a personal page. Zillow previously allowed homeowners to modify and/or correct the details, features and amenities of their homes and recalculate the estimated value. Those details and modifications can now be made public beside Zillow's own Zestimate if owners so choose.

Zillow's Zestimates have been critiqued in some quarters for being inflated or otherwise inaccurate. This capability will help add more accurate data to the content on the site.

Finally, Zillow has added cool "heat maps" to the site, showing by color the price per square foot of any area in the country.

We wrote about Zillow previously here and here.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:29 AM | Permalink

August 2, 2006

What Is 'Photosynth'? Microsofts's 3D Photo Mapping Tool

The first official project/product from Microsoft's Live Labs is called "Photosynth." What is it? It's hard to describe succinctly. It appears to be kind of mashup of things: photo sharing, visual search, mapping and 3-D.

To me, at least conceptually, it's pretty exciting. Here's a video overview from Microsoft. (The video is something of a commercial for Live Labs, but also showcases Photosynth as a very provocative product.)

Earlier this year I did a longish post on Google Earth as an alternative search/browsing paradigm: the "Geobrowser." Google and Microsoft are now in something of a mapping arms race that has little to do with consumer or advertiser demand. And Microsoft, notwithstanding Google Earth's impressive features and developer community, believes it has the edge.

To see what's really interesting about Photosynth and its implications one needs to step back. The Internet began as a text-based medium and is now becoming more and more visually rich. The growth of image search and the meteoric rise of online video are just two examples of this. Online, multiplayer gaming and virtual worlds like Second Life are other examples of emerging, visually immersive online environments.

People have difficulty imagining what search will look like five years from now. But it may in fact be that we collectively look back in a decade or so and see today's text-based search as a quaint precursor to a much more engaging and multi-dimensional search paradigm – literally in 3-D.

According to the video Photosynth was a collaboration among groups at Microsoft, including the Virtual Earth team. The crew at Virtual Earth wants to build a rich, "immersive" visual environment that ties the real and the online worlds together. (I blogged about Microsoft's vision for mapping here.)

Photosynth represents the merger of photosharing, community, search and 3-D mapping, with just a touch of gaming thrown in. Effectively it's an alternative web-search paradigm based on visual imagery. This type of approach doesn't replace the need for text-based search entirely but it could substitute for today's search in a substantial number of cases (especially for anything local or travel).

The vision of creating a "photorealistic" virtual world online is extremely ambitious. But ultimately I believe it's possible – and very exciting. The application will reportedly be available for download later this year.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:02 AM | Permalink

July 28, 2006

Trulia Distributing Its Maps To Local Realtors

As described on the Trulia Blog and The Future of Real Estate Marketing Blog, vertical real estate search site Trulia is making its maps with listings available for no cost to local brokers and realtors. The maps themselves are built on the Google Maps API and reflect local real estate listings drawn from broker feeds and crawling.

Here's what Trulia says about the new maps distribution:

"How does it work? Visit the Tools For Your Site section of Trulia and click on TruliaMap. Enter your website URL and we'll quickly tell you whether we've indexed your listings. You can then customize a TruliaMap to make it your own. Options include size (narrow or wide), colors, and even an option to have the map automatically animate through your listings."

Local realtors thus get a customized map on their sites featuring their listings. This is a smart (and natural) move because it will provide off-site distribution and branding for Trulia and encourage other local realtors and brokers to get their listings onto the site. It also makes participating local realtor sites much richer for users (The Real Estate Marketing Blog also suggests they add the Zillow API for house valuations). Trulia has essentially shunned the MLS services in favor of dealing directly with local agents.

Trulia offers one of the most feature rich and user friendly real estate sites in the market today.

Google Maps API and Google Maps have been wildly popular so, by the same token, why shouldn't a useful application built on top of Google Maps? But I wonder how Google will feel about this "re-syndication"?

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:46 PM | Permalink

July 25, 2006

Real-Time Traffic From Google Maps Mobile

Google Maps has rolled out a new mobile version offering real-time traffic information in 30 US cities. The service also offers directions designed for those who are walking, in addition to driving.

The mobile version is explained more here from Google. It requires downloading Java-based software which works with many mobile phones but certainly not all of them. Count me among the ones out of luck. It also won't work on Palm devices nor, from what I can tell, Windows Mobile/Pocket PCs. The FAQ explains more. All supported devices are here.

Google's also made a new version of its personalized home page for mobile devices, using this tool. Google Personalized Homepage on Mobile Phones from Google Blogoscoped and Google Beefs Up Mobile Home Page from Micro Persuasion cover more on how this works.

Very oddly, regular Google Maps hasn't gained either traffic information or pedestrian directions. That's too bad, because if they did, I could use the regular browser on my phone to get this type of information. Since Google fails to do this, here are alternatives from its competitors.

Yahoo rolled out real-time traffic information into Yahoo Maps well over a year ago. Our SearchDay article Yahoo Offers Real-Time Traffic Reports covers more about this, and help info from Yahoo is here.

Meanwhile, Windows Live Local from Microsoft added real-time traffic info about two months ago, as our past blog post Windows Live Local Adds Traffic and Sharing covers. Help info from Microsoft is here.

Mobile Access to Info: See The Traffic from us in the past has some tips on seeing real-time traffic via the TrafficLand web site, which has expanded since our original article to cover more cities.

Ask Maps doesn't have traffic info but it does provide an option to get directions both for those driving and for walking, something Google only gives you on your phone.

Nobody walks in LA -- or The OC -- for that matter. But if Ryan on The OC really was trying to walk between locations as the TV series would make you think (see my personal blog for more), here's a rough idea of how the three hour trip by foot gets turned into only minutes through the miracle of television. Oh -- and it also demonstrates how walking directions work on Ask.

And speaking of my personal blog, I couldn't resist doing a quick post about my new favorite way of getting traffic information, via my watch. See Real-Time Traffic Via My MSN Direct Spot Watch for more on that.

Postscript: Gary Price has listed some additional real time traffic resources here

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:07 AM | Permalink

July 21, 2006

More 3D Maps, an iTunes Video Podcast Directory, .CA Goes Mobile & Wildfires Database: Specialty Search Wrap Up

This weeks specialty search wrap up from Resource Shelf includes more 3D mapping tools, a iTunes video podcast directory, the Canadian government mobile edition, a resource for locating primary sources with international news and a wildfires and forest fire real time database.

Loving 3D satellite mapping tools? Want to spot more North Korean Missiles & Chinese Helicopters? Gary posted a roundup of free open source 3D satellite and aerial imagery. You can even check out images of places outside of this world, seriously! More details at Resource Shelf.
Like to watch videos on your iPod or on iTunes? Well, Gary has the details on Search For Video adding a method of searching for videos that can be downloaded directly to your iPod and iTunes. To view the directory listing of these videos go to Podcast Video portion of the directory. More details here.
Oh Canada on your mobile phone! Do you have a love for the Canadian government? Are you on the road a lot? If so, you can now get your fix at the Mobile Canada Site. You can learn more at http://canada.gc.ca/mobile/wireless_e.html or at Resource Shelf.
Do you hate getting your international news via second hand sources? Gary writes about Diplomacy Monitor, a site that gives you access to "primary documents and news releases from various governments and government agencies."
Is your house burning down? I hope not! This is the season for wildfires and forest fire and Gary has compiled a listings of database that offer real time information and reports. Check them out at Resource Shelf.

That is our specialty search roundup for this week.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:12 AM | Permalink

July 20, 2006

Windows Live Local Worth Another Look

Windows Live Local debuted with a splash with most attention focused on its spectacular "birds eye" aerial imagery. Since then, Microsoft has worked to improve the service, improving the user interface and adding unique features not found in other local search services. SEW correspondent Greg Sterling puts Windows Live Local through its paces in today's SearchDay article, A Closer Look at Windows Live Local.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:20 PM | Permalink

July 11, 2006

SuperPages Upgrades Maps With Microsoft

I never saw a press release. But today I discovered that SuperPages, which had dynamic mapping almost before anyone else in local (though it was "cludgey"), has upgraded the mapping on its site using the Microsoft Virtual Earth platform. The "new" maps are much nicer and easier to use than the last time I checked, which was admittedly a long time ago.

While there is aerial photography, there's no "Birds Eye" view here. YellowPages.com licensed Virtual Earth, including Birds Eye, several months ago.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 5:44 PM | Permalink

July 6, 2006

Incroyable! 'Le Tour' Uses Google Earth Not GeoPortail

WebProNews points to the Google Earth Blog in explaining that The Tour de France has integrated Google Earth into its site and functionality. In particular, the site offers complete 3-D rendering of all tour stages. But we must ask, why wasn't this done on France's homegrown Google Earth challenger GeoPortail?

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:34 AM | Permalink

June 25, 2006

France's Géoportail Mapping Site: La Demande C'est Fantastique!

The French answer to Google Earth, the indirectly government funded Geoportail, launched Friday and was immediately overwhelmed with visits from eager French citoyens (citizens) and other curious would-be users. After several visits to the site this weekend, I was still unable to get in to see anything. Each time I tried I encountered this message: "Vous êtes incroyablement nombreux à vous connecter au Géoportail, portail des territoires et des citoyens depuis sa mise en ligne." In my broken French it roughly translates: "An incredible number of you have connected to Geoportail, portal of the territories and the citizens, since the site came online."

In other words, revenu plus tard (come back later).

Here are some screenshots of the different map views, including Birds Eye-like angled aerial photography. Built by the government funded Insitut Geographique National for a reported Euro 6 million (roughly US$7.51 million), the site offers detailed maps, geographic and other data and high-resolution aerial photography of France and French territories abroad. Reportedly the resolution goes down to 20 inches, which I believe is the best currently available in France and perhaps the whole of Europe (though Microsoft's Vexcel camera goes to 6 inches).

A 3-D tool is apparently being introduced later in the year.

Although I haven't been able to use it, the reports and descriptions suggest that it's a potentially worthy competitor to Google, Yahoo and MSN mapping tools in France.

If you can read French and want to look at the press materials and some Quicktime videos related to the site, you can see those here.

Here's more from Gary Price at ResourceShelf, who reminds us of other sites that map France, including France Télécom's PagesJaunes street-level photography (like A9's Block View).

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:46 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2006

Yahoo, MapQuest Bring Where 2.0 Back to Earth

Excuse the pun, of sorts. Many of the speakers and panelists over the past couple of days at Where 2.0 demonstrated a range of cool technologies or whiz-bang features that probably don't have a hope of becoming breakout, mass market consumer applications. That doesn't mean they aren't interesting or useful. But the question is: where will these companies be in 5 years?

Presentations from Yahoo's Paul Levine and MapQuest's Jim Greiner today independently focused on practical issues like business models and mass consumer adoption.

Paul Levine, Local GM for Yahoo, had the unfortunate challenge of being in front of a hungry crowd before lunch and dealing with some technical glitches with his presentation. However he did an excellent job, given those challenges, presenting tons of information in a compressed 15 minutes. Levine raced through Yahoo's broader social media strategy, Local and Maps. He also announced the Yahoo Local & Maps Blog, which Yahoo sees as a communication tool for all its local constituencies (bloggers, press, merchants, consumer-influencers and developers).

Levine said, "Participation is guiding our strategy, for Yahoo broadly, for search and especially in Local." He reiterated the FUSE (find, use, share and extend) concept. "We want to tap into the amazing body of content that's out there broadly, whether it's online or in people's heads."

Levine identified three principal constituencies for Local and Maps: consumers, merchants and developers. Levine said that Yahoo's strategy is to build "a container" for consumers to provide content to Yahoo. He cited Answers and Local ratings and reviews as two of several examples. Merchants are the business model and developers help extend the value of Yahoo's platform and tools. Regarding monetization Levine asked the semi-rhetorical question: "Where's the business around all this; where's the value creation?"

That's a theme that MapQuest GM Jim Greiner echoed in his talk later in the afternoon. Greiner said that he wanted to impress upon the crowd "three simple truths" that MapQuest has learned in its more than 10 years in business: 1) focus on what's truly useful to consumers, 2) make it economically viable and 3) aim for the mass market.

He gave examples of each but pointed out that the dominant use case of mapping online is still driving directions. By his own admission, MapQuest is not the innovator it once was, but it is the market leader. He showed comScore traffic data reflecting MapQuest's leadership and continued growth, despite some of the "sexier" features being promoted by its competitors. But he acknowledged that some of those features would be added to MapQuest: personalization, aerial and satellite imagery and street-level photography.

Greiner stressed simplicity and utility and cited Wayfaring.com as a mashup tool that ordinary people could use without any technical knowledge. Ironically, however, the founders of Wayfaring.com haven't quit their day jobs because, according to hearsay, they don't yet have a business model that permits them to do that.

Indeed, there are only two or three business models online: subscription/licensing or some version of advertising. And with advertising you ideally have to offer targeting and some degree of reach. This is very difficult for most of the small consumer-facing sites at Where.

Effectively then these startups become labs and talent incubators for the search engines and portals. While most of these companies hold out hope of being the next Flickr or del.icio.us, both of which Yahoo acquired.

In contrast to Greiner's very pragmatic, "real-world" approach, Yahoo's Levine struck a balance between practical questions (i.e., monetization) and technological innovation. On the latter point he discussed the integration of Yahoo assets such as Flickr, Local and mapping and the work being done at the Yahoo Research Lab in Berkeley. As an example he discussed automatic geocoding of photographs from mobile phones using cell-tower triangulation.

Levine ended by seeking to differentiate Yahoo's Maps and API from its competitors. He went through a list of bullets but mentioned the Yahoo content API as part of the overall value proposition for developers: Flickr, Local content and traffic in addition to the underlying mapping platform.

Levine also pointed to branded online campaigns created by Baskin Robbins and Columbia Pictures utilizing Yahoo's mapping tools as evidence of its richness and adaptability.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 4:22 PM | Permalink

June 13, 2006

Google Earth: An Emerging 'Geobrowser'

I often hear people say about Google, "Other than search it's just a bunch of 'me-too' products." Whether or not you agree, you have to admit that in the case of Earth and Maps that's clearly not true. Although maps have become an important "battleground" in the so-called "search wars," it's an area where Google has clearly innovated with its developer tools and user experience.

There were a number of technical things about the new Google Earth rollout yesterday that went over my head; I'm not a developer and I was in a room of developers and engineers who were very much the intended audience at Google's Geo Developer Day on the Google campus. But I was impressed by a number of things yesterday that I'll try and capture here.

As Danny already posted, you can read about the new Google Earth 4 and associated features on the Google Blog. So I won't recap all those things. I'll run down what was interesting to me and where I think all this may be going.

Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin introduced the session I attended and emphasized the importance of geography and location generally. Schmidt said, "Geolocation is one of the big opportunities around search." He pointed out that Google was "investing heavily in the 'core infrastructure': better maps, faster servers, more local context and data."

We also keep hearing on analyst calls that Maps and Local are areas of success for Google, both in terms of usage and revenue. But its competitors, most notably Microsoft, are being at least as aggressive in trying to build out maps and related tools and user functionality. So this is going to be an area of accelerated innovation in the next couple of years.

John Hanke, Google Earth GM, moderated the session and discussed a range of things both technical and non-technical. Among them he discussed the intended 3-D mapping of cities around the globe with Google's SketchUp product. This is also an ambition that Microsoft shares. But what was impressive yesterday was a demonstration by Mark Limber, product manager for SketchUp, involving the real-time creation of a 3-D model from scratch and using imagery from Google's 3-D warehouse. He created a textured, photorealistic building in downtown San Francisco and plugged it into Earth in less than five minutes. He also spoke about some of the potential commercial applications of the technology for realtors, architects, designers and urban planners, among others. Here's a laundry list of SketchUp's commercial uses.

Another impressive element of the discussion concerned the role of the "Google Earth Community," which Google clearly sees as integral to its build out of the data layer for Earth and Maps. Google's Michael Jones, CTO of Earth, discussed Google's philosophy of "participatory mapping" and demonstrated some of the applications that third parties had created on top of Earth, including the relatively well known National Geographic data layer. (As an aside, this starts to redefine what the magazine is by putting content in a geographic context.)

Jones also demonstrated how you can layer historical photographs on Earth and effectively "time travel" by showing prior views of an area (e.g., the San Francisco Bay Area circa 1900). He also spoke about how information that one wouldn't ordinarily think of as geographic can actually be integrated into Earth and Maps. As an example, he mentioned how a developer had mapped all of Shakespeare's plays in Earth (their physical settings) with their associated historical details and text.

Google is encouraging the community of developers, and increasingly ordinary users, build out data on top of Earth and Maps. And we'll see tools that make it easier for ordinary people to create "mashups" over time. To that point, speaker Jessica Lee discussed KML files (a version of XML for Earth) and how they're an alternative way to publish mashups for people who don't use the API. This may still be too complicated for most people but it's moving in the direction of broad accessibility.

During the Q&A session at the end, I asked two questions. One was about the future relationship between Maps and Earth. John Hanke had formerly told me, after the Google acquisition of Keyhole, that Earth was essentially a "laboratory" for Maps. Clearly it has become something much more. He laughed and didn't remember saying that. But he and his team pointed out in response to the question that Maps and Earth now had the same infrastructure and there would be more and more overlap in the products. They saw them, however, as different use cases ultimately.

The other question I asked, prompted by something Jones had said earlier, was about Earth as a "geobrowser." As an aside, I ultimately believe some version of 3-D mapping converges with multi-player gaming. Then things will really get interesting. Someone asked a question along these lines and Hanke, who has a personal interest in gaming, responded, "Let's talk about that offline."

But the notion of Earth or Maps as an alternative way to search the Internet or discover information is only going to gain momentum. Ask's CEO Jim Lanzone long ago discussed with me the limitations of the "ten blue links" approach to delivering certain kinds of content. Google Earth is the opposite of the ten blue links: it's a rich visual and location specific way to browse for content; and almost any type of data (including video) can be rendered inside of Earth. It's literally an alternative web-browsing interface and paradigm. And in that regard it's incredibly fascinating.

The level of enthusiasm from developers in the room yesterday was very interesting to observe. Speakers were interrupted by loud applause several times in response to various techical statements. Such remarks and the response to them were generally lost on me until their significance was explained in English. It was at times a little like being in a foreign film without subtitles.

People that understand mapping and the associated tools are really excited about it as a platform and interface. Also the showcase of mashups, most of which have no commercial application whatsoever, reflected the creative appetite and enthusiasm for mapping and its potential uses.

Given the technical possibilities, the use cases and the increasing competition, which will only fuel the continuing evolution of the product, it's safe to say that dynamic mapping and 3-D rendering online are at the beginning of a potentially explosive development cycle. And that will likely take us in directions we're only vaguely aware of right now.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:20 AM | Permalink

May 29, 2006

WikiMapia: Google Maps and Wikipedia Mashup

Coming on the heels of the recently launched Microsoft MapCruncher, WikiMapia uses the Google Maps API and a Wiki interface. This enables users to enter or edit information with map hotspots. They ask that you refrain from adding anything that wouldn't be useful to everyone. Currently, the entries mainly consist of empty hotspots on buildings of interest, but a UK PacMan was also spotted. The search functionality only works searching tags applied to entries. There just aren't enough entries yet. I searched [cropcircle] from the main screen, and it limited the hotspots to the single entry with that tag. If WikiMapia gets populated, the search would obviously become more elaborate.

Posted by Detlev Johnson at 10:27 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2006

Ask.com Has Sweet Europe Maps With Aerials

Search Engine Journal reports that Ask.com has some pretty impressive Europe maps, with aerial imagery. Loren Baker links to three examples including Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, Houses of Parliament, London and even some nice coverage of The Canals of Amsterdam.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:53 AM | Permalink

May 9, 2006

ResourceShelf Offers Real-Time Resource Engines Feature

Gary Price has launched a new feature at ResourceShelf named "ResourceShelf Real-Time." ResourceShelf Real-Time will provide links to resources, including Web resources and desktop/palm/client applications, that "offer real-time or near real-time" data and information. In Gary's first Real-Time post, he links to FlightAware, Amtrak Real-Time Train Status, What's Playing on Sirius Satellite Radio Right Now, City of Seattle Real-Time 911 Dispatch and more. So if you are a specialty search 'freak', I highly recommend you get your fix from ResourceShelf Real-Time.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:41 AM | Permalink

May 8, 2006

Microsoft Accelerates Mapping

Mapping has already become one of the most competitive arenas online -- a visual version of local search. Barry posted earlier about how Microsoft wants to enable dynamic updating of online maps with traffic and other local data in real time. Last week, as I posted on my blog, the company announced the well-known acquisition of Vexcel corporation. Vexcel is a "remote sensing" and mapping company that enables, among other things, extremely high resolution aerial photography and 3-D mapping.

Microsoft is investing very heavily in maps and map-related technology. It sees mapping as an opening in its struggle against Google and now considers itself the technology leader in mapping. Virtual Earth, like Google and Yahoo!, has an API and the company is starting to license its product to companies like Zillow and YellowPages.com. Google remains ?ahead? in terms of the proliferation of its maps and use of its API. (According to Philipp Lessen, Google has started serving AdWords in Google Earth.)

Because of the importance of mapping both "generically" to consumers and as an entry point for local search, neither Google nor Yahoo! can afford to allow Microsoft to break out in this area. Thus I would expect to see more investment and an acceleration of product development in the near term.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 11:14 AM | Permalink

Microsoft To Map The World In Real Time?

The TechnologyReview.com has an interesting article explaining a project at Microsoft named SenseWeb, that will strive to enable Windows Live Local to have real-time mapping and local data. The real-time information, is reportedly going to be up-to-the minute on local gas prices, traffic flows, restaurant wait times, parking information and more. It is important to note that Yahoo maps have been offering real-time traffic reports since at least January 2005. I am interested to see how Microsoft will enable local gas prices, restaurant wait times and parking information into this system.

I personally rarely use Yahoo maps for local traffic data before driving anywhere. But would real-time traffic data be of use to you while you are driving? I suspect I would use it often if it were fully integrated into my GPS system. If it is not integrated into your GPS system or you do not have a GPS system, then maybe TrafficGauge makes sense for you - it is one nice review. I would suspect whatever Microsoft does with SenseWeb, they would have plans to integrate it into their GPS device.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:30 AM | Permalink

May 5, 2006

Australians Need Maps -- Zoom Australia Delivers

Startup Beats Google Maps on its Home Turf from O'Reilly Radar notes that those living in Australia can't turn to Google Maps for directions, ironic since apparently most of the Google Maps team is based in Sydney. Into the void now comes ZoomIn, allowing you to get road maps in Google Maps style. No aerial views, however -- but Google Maps does have that. Here's one of my favorite places, the Sydney Opera House.

What about Yahoo? Extremely basic maps (forget getting directions) and very rough imagery. Windows Live Local? Forget the cool Bird's Eye images. They're worse than Yahoo.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:41 AM | Permalink

May 2, 2006

Ask.com Launches Physical / Topicgraphical Maps Views

Ask.com's Gary Price posts about Ask.com rolling out a new topographical views on Ask Maps. The feature is called "physical" and it shows illustrates the physical features of an area, such as mountains and bodies of water. This is different from satellite imagery, where satellite imagery are real pictures of the land, physical views are illustrations only. You can check out New York's physical map by clicking here. This feature currently does not work in Safari for Mac and it is only available for level 7 zoom or higher.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:17 AM | Permalink

April 21, 2006

Google Local Goes Back To Being Google Maps

Google gave us the heads-up about this earlier this week, that Google Local was going to be renamed Google Maps. Now it's happened. Either URL you use, http://local.google.com/ or http://maps.google.com/ comes back with the Google Maps name.

But wait a minute! Wasn't Google Maps just renamed Google Local a few months ago? Yep, back in October. Google explains briefly to News.com how they flip-flopped because people kept calling Google Local "Google Maps."

Hate to say it, but perhaps they should go back to two different sites. Local results can still be in Google Maps and vice-versa, but separately, they might be easier to maintain with more targeted front pages for what people probably expect. For example, compare Yahoo Local to Yahoo Maps.

Postscript: Google has more on the change on its blog.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:37 AM | Permalink

April 18, 2006

TechCrunch Rates Yahoo Maps The Best Mapping Service

TechCrunch has an outstanding review of mapping services offered by Yahoo, Google, MapQuest, Ask.com and MSN. The review takes you through scoring on views, navigation, mapping routes, functional actions and services and pricing. Overall, Yahoo maps wins over the other mapping services.

Yahoo Maps was by far the best application tested. Its fast Flash interface, multipoint directions, live traffic information, and easy send-to-mobile feature make it the hands down winner. It also features the most robust API options.

Read the full review at TechCrunch. Oh, I have my own little and un-comprehensive review on mapping services based on driving to Toronto next week.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink

April 13, 2006

Zillow Adds Birds-Eye Imagery

Zillow, the real estate portal I wrote about several weeks ago, has added birds-eye aerial photography from Microsoft's Virtual Earth to complement its maps and own satellite images of U.S. neighborhoods (here's an example). The images are available for a few dozen cities with more to come.

From the Zillow blog:

It's easy to imagine the clarity these images add for a home buyer curious about a property's architecture, yard or neighboring homes. Personally I like looking at my neighborhood the most. Not only is this a perspective I've never seen (even though I've lived in the same neighborhood my whole life), it allows me to do "Sunday afternoon strolls" looking at nearby houses whenever I want. In the side-by-side view, I get the Zestimate and home details on the traditional Zillow satellite map right next to the bird's eye view.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 2:59 PM | Permalink

April 12, 2006

New Global Satellite and Aerial Imagery Added to Yahoo! Maps

Yahoo has beefed up its Yahoo Maps beta with several new features, including more comprehensive and detailed coverage than most of its competitors. Yahoo says Yahoo Maps now offers complete, detailed maps and high-resolution satellite imagery for all of lower 48 United States.

Also new are medium resolution maps for the entire globe, featuring images at 15 meters per pixel (zoom level 5, medium resolution), which essentially lets you find and see every city, town, and major land feature in the world. Yahoo says this makes it the most comprehensive mapping and satellite imagery service available, at least for now.

Yahoo has also cleaned up the data you see, processing the satellite imagery to make the visuals more aesthetically pleasing. This means you'll no longer see uneven seams where images are joined, missing imagery or strange colors.

All of the new imagery is available for anyone to use on websites, for mashups or other uses through the Yahoo Maps API.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

April 7, 2006

SDForum To Host GeoSearch & Mapping Session With Google, Yahoo, MSN, & Ask.com

Search SIG announces that Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com will be on a panel named MapOFF! to take place at Yahoo headquarters on April 11th. The panel includes Jeremy Kreitler of Yahoo, Thai Tran of Google Maps, Alex Daley of Microsoft Virtual Earth and Andy Yang of Ask.com, moderated by Brady Forrest of Microsoft. More information on the event here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:54 AM | Permalink

March 24, 2006

Do Aerial Maps Violate Our Privacy?

These Maps Are Nice to Look at, but Not Smart from the LA Times revisits the entire "do aerial maps show too much" issue. Past stories on this topic have tended to look at how various countries are concerned that sensitive areas are displayed. This reporter takes a different angle, about whether maps show too much about our own homes.

So do you have a privacy right for your house not to be displayed? My initial reaction was no. Airplanes, helicopters and satellites fly overhead all the time taking pictures. They've been doing this since before such images where shown through products from Google and Microsoft. The data's already been out there, accessible in other ways, for ages. Heck, pick any car chase in LA and people know how the helicopters go up, broadcasting "private" images from above to anyone. Aerial privacy -- c'mon!

Then again, perhaps Google and Microsoft should consider allowing people to block out their homes, if they can prove they are the owners. If the White House and the US Capitol get to be blanked out, why not give everyone the right as good customer relations?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:06 PM | Permalink

Google Tests New Image Ads In Google Local

Shimon Sandler found that Google Local is testing another form of PPC ads in Google Local. If you search on booksellers nyc at Google Local, and if you look at the map you will notice some results have little coffee icons. If you click on the coffee icon within the map, more info pops up. This pop up contains a header named "Sponsored Link" and with local information and a large Barnes and Noble logo.

PostScript: Shimon also says that this is named "GeoAds." Reportedly, it is available to all, if not most business segments. How do you sign up for your business? Well, I am not 100% sure. You can go to Google Base and do a bulk upload of your multiple business listings or add/edit your local business listing. I tried the local business listing, but was unsuccessful in adding a sponsored listing or logo to my result.

If you are a Mac user, like myself, you most likely won't see the coffee icon, in either Safari or even Firefox. But if you are a PC user, you should see the result on both IE and FireFox. Here are screen captures if you are like me.

Perspective Screen Capture:

Zoom In Screen Capture:

This is an alternative form of ads in Google Local. First time we noticed sponsored ads was when Google placed blue pins in the results.

Want to discuss? Join our forum thread named Google Tries Alternative to Blue Pins in Google Local Maps.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:40 AM | Permalink

March 13, 2006

Google Mars Launches

Google launched Google Mars this morning and has posted it at Google Labs. Garett Rogers emailed me last night, when he first discovered Google Mars. He found Google Mars by some digging of his own last night. Google Mars allows you to view Mars three ways, by elevation, by "visible" and by infrared. Google has plotted points by Regions, Mountains, Plains Spacecraft, Canyons, Ridges, Stories, Dunes, and Craters. They have plans to add a Google Earth like desktop feature for Mars in the future. More information at About Google Mars.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:26 AM | Permalink

February 27, 2006

Ask Upgrades and Rebrands Flagship Search Engine

Ask has finally taken the long-expected step of retiring its mascot, Jeeves, and rebranding its search engine. But today's rebranding goes far beyond a few cosmetic changes, introducing upgraded core search and a bevy of cool new tools that are customizable and extendible. Bottom line: it's a slick, impressive upgrade. I've got more details in today's SearchDay article, Ask Looses Jeeves, Gains New Features.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

February 26, 2006

Ask Jeeves Gets New Menu Sidebar, Maps; Retires Teoma Chris Sherman will have a more formal write-up later in SearchDay about new changes you can now spot up on Ask, in particular a "Search Tools" navigational sidebar that lets you jump between things like web and image search. New on that sidebar is a Maps area, where you can get traditional maps and aerial views. Ask has also announced that the Teoma search engine has been retired. Teoma.com now redirects to Ask Jeeves. The Teoma search technology is being rebranded as ExpertRank, something we predicted back in November.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:45 PM | Permalink

February 21, 2006

Google Maps at Night

Peter Pesti created Google Maps at Nighttime. This map overlays both night, dusk and day versions of the standard Google Maps product. The site remarks, "The underlying 128 megapixel night imagery from NASA uses a map projection different from Google Maps'. The two are aligned near the NYC-Madrid-Tokyo axis only." I forgot exactly where I found it yesterday, but I thought it was worth a quick note.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:42 AM | Permalink

February 1, 2006

Where on Earth?

Mapping and satellite imagery services from the major search engines have been getting a lot of buzz lately, but a number of specialized geographic search tools have been around for years, and they're great tools if you're looking for information about specific places literally anywhere on the planet. I've got an overview of a couple of the best in today's SearchDay article, Searching for a Sense of Place.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:23 AM | Permalink

January 27, 2006

Check out Cool Bird's Eye Imagery from Windows Live Local on Bird's Eye Tourist

You've likely seen sites that allow people to share cool places and things found using the satellite and aerial imagery from Google Maps/Google Local. Google Sightseeing is an example.

However, what about a site where cool "bird's eye" imagery of places and things found using Windows Live Local could be shared? The answer is yes, such a site exists. Check out the new Bird's Eye Tourist and see what others have spotted and share what you find.

Bird's Eye Tourist is searchable but you can also browse by location and categories. Now you know what I'll be doing this weekend. (-:

For example, the California collection presently offers views of surfers in Malibu, the home used in Psycho, sea lions on Pier 39, and a few celebrity homes.

I've asked Microsoft via e-mail if any new bird's eye imagery for specific cities or areas has been added to Windows Live Local since it launched a few months ago. When I here back I'll postscript this entry.

For more on Windows Live Local check out this post where we list the cities where bird's eye imagery is available. Overhead aerial and satellite imagery available for many more areas.

Postscript: What many people don't realize is that Live Local also has 15 meter satellite imagery (not Bird's Eye) for most of the world included in its database. It's discussed in this post. You can also read this press release from Harris, the providers of the content.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:28 PM | Permalink

January 24, 2006

New and More Detailed Imagery Comes to Google Local and Google Earth

Via Google Blogoscoped and this post on the Google Blog, word that Google has added some new and improved imagery offering greater detail to Google Earth and Google Local users.

From the Google Blog post: Not only have we added extensive 6-inch imagery for many parts of the U.K., but we've updated the Google Local database to match the coverage we have in Google Earth, and (drum roll, please) ... we've added two more zoom levels in Google Local's Satellite mode! Now for many areas around the world you can see a lot more detail than you could before.

Posted by Gary Price at 7:30 PM | Permalink

January 17, 2006

Hot: Real Estate Industry Uses of Satellite/Aerial Imagery

The combo of online maps, satellite/aerial imagery, and real estate are a hot combo these days. This new Reuters article, Every inch of Netherlands viewable online, offers a profile of Funda.nl a database that lists 75 percent of the Dutch property for sale and gets 2.6 million visitors every month. It will soon provide 15 million photographs growing it to 21 million images by year-end.

Full-circle pictures taken at 20 meter intervals (about 65 feet) in metropolitan areas and every 50 meters (about 165 feet) in rural areas will show the entire country at street level, with satellite images supplied by Google Earth offering a bird's-eye view.

The local imagery comes from Cyclomedia, a company out of Delft Technical University.

With the release of Google Maps and Google Earth last year we saw numerous mashups that combine real estate listings with aerial and satellite imagery. Example include OnOneMap (UK) and HousingMaps (US).

We've also blogged about Google talking commercial real estate data source, CoStar, working together.

However, don't forget that Google licenses most of it's imagery from one of several sources including the USGS (anyone can download for free) and DigitalGlobe and they are not the only ones working with the real estate industry or power sites that merge real estate listings, aerial imagery, and maps. Here's a quick list to a few others.

+ HomePages.com (Free) Combines aerial imagery, local data, with real estate listings. Impressive!!!

+ MSN is also involved in the real estate industry. This Virtual Earth Blog post from about a week ago points out that they're working with LoopNet, a provider of commercial real estate data. Screen caps are available and it's likely that they'll be adding the birds eye imagery that's now part of Windows Live Local. MS licenses this imagery from Pictometry.

+ GlobeXplorer a company that provides a variety of satellite and aerial imagery services to both consumers and real estate professionals. One service the company released in the past few months is Property Analyst aimed at industy types. However, anyone can demo the service for free. The demo uses San Francisco County data. Look for the link on the right side of the page.

+ I haven't read of any real estate industry uses of A9's BlockView (street level) imagery but I would think that in some cases it might be of value. Btw, if you feel like wandering the streets of Paris and other cities in France and Spain, take a look at the street level imagery from Pages Jaunes. Chris wrote an intro to this service in 2004.

+ Finally, it's great to see an aerial or satellite image but in some cases you also want to know about the precise location you're viewing. Again, no word of real estate industry uses but like I've said many times, TerraFly from Florida International University does a great job of combining imagery with local data (census, crime stats, stores, etc.). U.S. only. More about TerraFly here.

+ Although Yahoo doesn't offer any aerial imagery, property rental listings from Yahoo Real Estate now offers maps with listings placed directly on them.

Postscript: Another company you might want to know about is Skyline Software. Free demos allow you to virtually "fly over" (3D too!) and then zoom-in on a bunch of cities including Chicago, San Diego, London and Sydney. VERY cool!!! They're even offering a tool (free) allowing you to view the 2006 Dakar rally in 3D.

Postscript 2: I mentioned earlier in this post that I didn't know of any real estate uses of TerraFly Well, an email from Dr. Naphtali David Rishe, from Florida International University informed me that TerraFly has been working with the real estate industry including the Realtor Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches (RAMB) to offer TerraFly4Realtors.

From the email: The RAMB members access TerraFly just either by logging in at or via deep links from MLS property listings. This TerraFly4Realtors application includes MLS listings overlaid on the imagery as well as detailed information on our local data page or Point Data Page, in addition to property lines in the Miami-Dade County area and drill-down property appraiser data..

Posted by Gary Price at 7:37 PM | Permalink

New Mashup Combines Public Library Location Info with Google and Yahoo Maps

If you live in the US or Canada you no longer can say you don't know where public libraries in your area or any area for that matter are located. Over on ResourceShelf we've posted about Libraries411.com a new mashup that combines public library location info (and more) for more than 20,000 libraries in the US and Canada and mashes the info with both Google Maps or Yahoo Maps. Cool!

Posted by Gary Price at 6:26 PM | Permalink

Logos On Rooftops Probably Not Aimed At Google Maps

Boing Boing points to Advertising with Google Maps, which suggest that merchants like Target and others are tapping into satellite views on Google Maps and Windows Live Local by painting logos on the top of their buildings. Paint me a bit dubious. I suspect these logos were painted in most cases to appeal to those flying over buildings by airplane. I'd further guess you'd see most of them along known flight paths.

I make these guesses based on years of looking out of airplane windows when landing. But I also did a bit of research. RoofAds is a company that will, well, paint your logo on your rooftop. Why? The about page at RoofAds says:

Each day, millions of commuters gaze out of their airplane windows upon takeoff and landing from airports around the world. These commuters see mountains, rivers, cities, and white rooftops of large buildings.

Here's a nice gallery of their work, along with stats on how many passengers per day will see your roof ad around various airports. Notice that one of the roof ads is for Yahoo Autos!

How many mentions of Google Maps on the RoofAds site? Zilch. In other words, here's a company that specializes in selling rooftop ads. However, seeing your ad in Google Maps is not yet a selling point or it. That more than makes me think people aren't painting ads for Google Maps.

FYI, I did find some other examples of rooftop ads. Here's an Agfa one at the Google Globetrotting site. Given how faded it is, fair to say it wasn't slapped up to take advantage of Google Maps, which launched with satellite views only last April.

The Target ad is best seen at Boing Boing, link above. But it came from Google Sightseeing on this page. The site is currently down, probably because of the Boing Boing attention. You might also try searching for "roof" or "rooftop" over at the Google Earth forums.

Certainly those with rooftop logos will get some gains as satellite view mapping services continue to gain in popularity. We'll even likely see some consider painting logos on rooftops for just this reason. But the phenomenon probably shouldn't be attributed to Google Maps.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:19 AM | Permalink

January 12, 2006

Microsoft Research India Demos Interactive, Multilingual Map Prototype

Although the primary focus of our blog is search, there is no doubt that interest from the search community in geographic info continues to grow rapidly. With that in mind, an interesting release on the Microsoft site about the first public demonstration of a "multilingual interactive digital map" prototype from MS Research India.

The research prototype announced today enables the addition of information such as the location of polling booths and other data that empowers citizens to create and maintain maps that are uniquely relevant to their communities. Microsoft Research India and the Department of Science and Technology plan to leverage experiences from this prototype to develop effective countrywide mechanisms for spatial data creation, collection and dissemination that can be useful in a number of ways, such as for disaster management. More information about this project can be found on Microsoft Research India?s Web site at http://www.research.microsoft.com/virtualindia.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:21 PM | Permalink

Google Tests New Local Ads On Maps

Google Tests Local Ads on Maps at ClickZ covers David Galbraith spotting that Google now appears to be inserting paid ads into maps on Google Local. For a search on hotels new york, he's spotted "blue pins" that correspond to what may be new sponsored links that come above editorial listings to the left of the map.

On my end, I see the textual ads but not the blue pins. Neither does Gary. A search for pizza san francisco shows a text ad but no blue pins. A few other searches I did also showed sponsored ads but no pins.

As I said, the sponsored links seem new. I don't recall seeing them on Google Local before, but it could be they were there but less noticeable before Google Local and Google Maps merged. We're checking on this and tracking down the mystery blue pins!

Want to comment or discuss? Visit our SEW Forums thread, AdWords Balloons in Google Maps.

Postscript: Statement from Google, "As part of our continuing effort to provide a positive advertising experience for users and advertisers, we are always exploring ways to improve the way we display ads. We are currently conducting a limited test of ads on Google Local. We do not have any other specific details to share at this time." Also, text ads have been on Google Local since 2004.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:56 AM | Permalink

January 11, 2006

National Stereotypes, Search Activity, Package Tracking & More All Mapped

Thanks to Philipp Lenssen and Nacho Hernandez for alerting us to few new uses of Google Maps and other mapped info. Track your packages, see how people are searching across the world in light and what people think about national stereotypes, all mapped.

+ PackageMapper.com. This is not your run of the mill package traking service but actually allows you to see the routing of your FedEx, UPS, or USPS package. Cool!

+ Google is offering a map that highlights various users of the Google Mini around the United States and Canada. You can view users by industry or all users. Click and you'll receive a pop-up with the name of the company, info on how the mini is used and a testimonial from a person at that company. An impressive use of Google Maps as a marketing tool.

+ The Prejudice Map is a service that Philipp Lenssen has created that combines Google Web Search with a Google Map. What does the map show? For each country, Lenssen has run the Google search, "xxx are known for *" (Examples, "Australians are known for *", "Canadians are known for *", and many other countries and then placed some of the terms he found on the map. No one can ever claim that Philipp doesn't find interesting uses for Google search results.

+ Finally, GB points to this fascinating animated visualization (via Information Aesthetics) that animates daily Google search query distribution across world in 2003." The data comes from Google Labs. I would love to see how this would compare with query distribution last year.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:40 AM | Permalink

January 6, 2006

Google Maps in 3D and Another Source for Interactive 3D Maps, Maps24.com

Via GB, a note about a demo from Japan that offers 3D views of Google Maps. Unfortunately, I had issues with it (I did use Firefox 1.5). Another service that offers a 3-D map views is Maps 24 from Germany.

They've offered the 3D option for some time. The problem is that it's not easy to find and use. Btw, as you'll notice on the Maps 24 homepage, maps are available for several countries (including all of Europe) and the interface in several languages. Let's see if I can give you a quick overview on how to access:

1) Make sure your Java is activate 2) Enter a street address and city, state, Zip or plan a route (driving directions). 3) Make sure the "interactive" option is selected (upper right corner. 4) Note the toolbar in the upper left corner (zoom-in, zoom out, measure distance between points, open in a separate window, etc.) and the 3-D viewing option in the lower right corner. 5) Note the pull-down to various locations to the map. For example, hospitals, theaters, etc. Note: It's also possible to use Maps24 and access driving directions. What's cool here is that you can "view" your route in motion, like a short film. They call it "Route Flight." 6) Need more help? Here's the FAQ.

+ Maps 24 Europe + Maps 24 North America + Maps 24 Brazil + Maps 24 Middle East

Perhaps an easier to use interface to begin searching with Maps24 is available via Yahoo Maps UK especially if you're looking for European info. However, the 3D and "Route Flight" tools are unavailable.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:40 AM | Permalink

January 3, 2006

New OSX Dashboard Widget for MSN Virtual Earth; Yahoo Maps Gets a Widget

It goes without saying that 2005 was the year of online maps and online aerial/satellite imagery. Here are a couple of new tools that will likely continue their popularity into 2006.

+ First, a new version of an MSN Virtual Earth widget was released over the weekend for Mac OSX Dashboard.

+ Second, Yahoo Maps now has a widget (Mac and PC) that's available here.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:36 PM | Permalink

December 27, 2005

Saturday Night Live Skit Mentions MapQuest, Yahoo Maps and Google Maps

The final edition of Saturday Night Live of 2005 about 10 days ago included a hilarious "digital video short" by cast members Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg as they walk the streets of NYC rapping about everything from The Chronicles of Narnia to map search tools (MapQuest, Yahoo Maps, and Google Maps).

When the video ended I wondered (more liked hoped) a high quality copy would be available on the web and available for downloading.

Today, Media News Daily reports that the SNL video is available on iTunes for free. If you have access to iTunes, go to the iTunes Music Store and select: + TV Shows for the genre box (left column) + Then NBC in the "Networks" section (left column). The video is titled "Lazy Sunday." Look for the text that says "free."

If you don't have access to the U.S. iTunes store or don't want your own copy, no worries, the video is also available (copyright emptor) Google Video and YouTube. The iTunes version looks better (not recorded off of tv) and does not have an NBC spider (the logo in the lower right corner).

So, what does this fun and funny music video have to say about the three map search tools?

They're rapping about where to see The Chronicles or Narnia Chris: Let's hit up Yahoo Maps to find the dopest route. (image of Yahoo Maps page visible)

Andy: I prefer MapQuest

Chris: That's a good one too.

Andy: Google Maps is the best.

Chris: Tru dat!

Andy and Chris: Double True!

The words "Double True" appear in Google colors.

Yes, the video is also another example of the power of how Google is able to reinforce its brand with little extra effort.

The complete transcript (unofficial) of the rap is also online.

If you feel like several big laughs and many smiles, this 2.5 minute video is more than worth a look and/or download.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:10 PM | Permalink

Google To Limit Photo Resolution Of Israeli Military Sites

We reported earlier about a great New York Times article looking at how various governments around the world have been made nervous by aerial images posted in Google Maps. Now via Google Blogoscoped, there's a report out of Israel that Google has agreed to limit the resolution of military installations in Israel, something the NYT article says is mandated by US law.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:21 AM | Permalink

December 20, 2005

Governments Ask Google to Turn a Blind Eye

Some of those incredibly detailed aerial images available using Google Earch are making some governments nervous. In Governments Tremble at Google's Bird's-Eye View, the New York Times writes about several governments who have expressed alarm.

South Korean officials have said they fear that Google Earth lays bare details of military installations. Thai security officials said they intended to ask Google to block images of vulnerable government buildings. And Lt. Gen. Leonid Sazhin, an analyst for the Federal Security Service, the Russian security agency that succeeded the K.G.B., was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying: "Terrorists don't need to reconnoiter their target. Now an American company is working for them."

This isn't the first time these concerns have surfaced. Gary blogged about the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation asking Google to remove an image of Australia's only nuclear reactor from Google Earth last summer.

Since Google is simply repackaging imagery that's available elsewhere, there's little governments can do to influence what's included in Google Earth.

Postscript from Gary: Several people have asked where does the imagery come from that Google Maps, Google Earth, and MSN Live Local/Virtual Earth come from.

As Chris points out and I've pointed out in the past, Google and MSN are purchasing or obtaining the imagery from several sources. You could also buy imagery from these companies. There is not a Google Satellite or MSN Satellite orbiting the earth.

Sources include: + USGS (United States Geological Survey) USGS offers its own database that anyone can download the raw imagery for free. More examples here.

+ Digital Globe

+ Space Imaging

+ Pictometry Providers of "bird's eye" view imagery to MSN Virtual Earth/Windows Live Local.

+ Harris Just announced deal with MSN for global imagery. Other Databases for Aerial and Satellite Imagery Other tools and aerial that make aerial/satellite imagery available: + GlobeXplorer Database of imagery from various providers.

Long before Google Earth/Maps was available: + World Wind from NASA They even have a wiki that features cool locations users have found. In October, World Wind added cool 3-D imagery of the Moon.

and

+ TerraFly from Florida International University This service provides something we don't find elsewhere. Detailed local info for every location. Down to block level. U.S. only.

Also, very new and not a mashup is HomePages.com Aerial imagery plus real estate listings for many large U.S. metro areas. They also provide additional local data and info about recent home sales.

Finally + Skyline Software. Download their TerraExlporer app (free) and flyover and various cities around the globe and look at building and other locations from various angles. I'm surprised that some Google competitor hasn't done a deal with these guys. Very cool!

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:51 PM | Permalink

December 8, 2005

Google Labs Quietly Releases Transit Trip Travel Planner for Portland, Oregon

Via Yahoo's Zawodny: Word of Google Transit Trip Planner. This new Google Labs beta (not to be confused with Google Ride Finder, that's one we haven't heard about in a while) allows people in Portland, Oregon (ONLY) (sorry, Portland, Maine) to "plan trips [with Google Maps] using public transportation." Sort of a Google mashup of its own. Unfortunately, when I tried several examples, they all came back saying, "Sorry, we were unable to calculate transit directions between xxx and xxx." Well, that's a Google beta for you. (-;

Are more cities coming soon? The FAQ puts it this way, "Sorry, but we don't yet have any definite plans for which cities will be added and when." However, public transportation officials from other cities are invited to contact Google.

Although I was unable to get it to work I can see from the FAQ that the Trip Planner also provides you with an estimate of how much it would cost to drive instead of using public transit.

Are transportation services the next big area for big G? Let's see, Google Ride Finder in March, links to air travel fare and timetable info last month, the lonog time availability of airline flight tracking, and now this. Could Google use its computing power to build reservation and other needed info systems?

Btw, if you're looking to check out another cool transportation tool, only available for select cities including San Francisco, check out NextBus.com. It's even available for Portland's streetcar. It offers real time info as to when the next bus, train, streetcar, or other form of transportation will be arriving at a specific location. Come to think of it, I could see this company ripe for either a partnership with a large search company or even a buyout. More info here.

Posctript: Google has registered the domains: GoogleTransitplanner.com., .info.,.org. and .net and GoogleTripPlanner.net, .org, and .info In case you're wondering, GoogleTripPlanner.com was registered to a person in Virginia last month. Thank to G.R. for his help with this one.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:55 AM | Permalink

December 1, 2005

"Hypermaps" of Boston From StrataVarious Using Google, MSN, and Yahoo Maps

The StrataVarious HyperMap Atlas comes from Boston based StrataVarious and are available in three mashup flavors: Google Maps, MSN Virtual Earth, and Yahoo Maps. Trust me folks, this is some cool stuff for both Boston residents and those who plan to visit the city. It's also a great way to look at the mapping services from all three companies.

Here are three examples of a just a few (and I mean few) features. It seemed like with every click I discovered something new.

Via Yahoo Maps 1) Select Landmarks (right side of page) 2) Click Faneuil Hall (note the Faneuil Hall circle appears on the map) 3) Locate the box (lower right corner) and find info about the history of the location, a photo, tourist info, and a link to "zoom-in" with incredible detail. I believe these maps come from StrataVarious.

Via MSN Virtual Earth 1) Select Landmarks 2) Select "Back Bay" located in the box in the right column 3) Click Fenway Park (Home of the Boston Red Sox) 4) Now, look for Fenway info and click Zoom-in 5) A new map should appear. Now, click "Air" and get a great aerial image of the stadium

Via Google Maps 1) Click Colleges 2) Select Boston University 3) Click Zoom-In 4) Click "Air" and once again and aerial view of the location

Again, I just selected just the tip of the iceberg. Spend some time with these tools. Cool, useful, and fun!

Posted by Gary Price at 12:16 AM | Permalink

November 29, 2005

MapQuest Versus The Mapping Upstarts

Competitors Nip at MapQuest's Biz from the Associated Press looks at how mapping leader MapQuest, owned by AOL, is being threatened by improved mapping services and mashup features offered by Google, Yahoo and MSN.

It notes that MapQuest once had satellite views similar to how Google and MSN now offer but scrapped them as being fun but not that useful. And I agree -- satellite views are largely fun but not that crucial. But in a feature war, having them is a plus.

MapQuest plans to bring them back later this year. Yahoo still doesn't have them, but you'd expect they'll be coming.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:53 AM | Permalink

November 17, 2005

UK: Send Maps to Mobile Phones With Multimap and Other Send to Phone Tools

Netimperative reports that online mapping service Multimap has added a "map to mobile" feature that allows the searcher to send the url of a map to their mobile phone/device via SMS (text messaging) and then click to view the map on their mobile phone/device.

The MultiMap "map to mobile" feature is currently only available in the United Kingdom but it should be online in other European countries in the "not-so-distant-future." The service is fee-based so make sure to review the article for that info. This new service sounds similar to what Yahoo has offered with it's "send to phone" feature for local search info, driving directions/maps, and shopping info here in the U.S.

Another service that I regularly use, Vazu.com, allows the sending of text, imagery, MP3's and more via SMS (U.S. and Canada only). I plan on taking a closer look at this service in the near future.

Finally, the Firefox version of the Google Toolbar offers a "send to phone" extension (U.S.) only.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:24 PM | Permalink

November 10, 2005

Mashups a Go-Go! New Mashups from MSN Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps

It's good to see more map mashups coming from developers working with both MSN Virtual Earth and Yahoo Maps. Here's a look at just a couple of them. Remember, these are just released apps and bugs are bound to exist.

MSN Virtual Earth

Virtual Places Nice! All sorts of "overlays." Add in images Flickr, travel books about a specific location, weather, local blogs, and more. Coming soon will be a tagging, sharing, and publishing. Btw, Virtual Places says it works with Firefox. However, I had problems when using my Firefox browser. Might be my problem.
OSX Dashboard Widget for MSN Virtual Earth For the Mac folks out there.
Read All About It Combine MSN Virtual Earth with the Amazon.com book database. Enter a location and find books about the location or events that took place there.

Yahoo Maps

Local Events Browser This Ajax-based demo allows you to find events in and around San Francisco. Find events by date and tags. Add events directly to your Yahoo Calendar.
MashupUpcoming.org Impressive! Take Yahoo Maps and then add events from Upcoming.org's (a new Yahoo property) database. You can even add in local traffic, wi-fi hotspots, and ATM's.
Geocoding, Local Seach, Traffic API Mash-up with Yahoo Maps! Useful and easy to use. Enter an address, a local data (like a store name), and then decide to overlay traffic info. Select each button one at a time. Btw, you can use Zip Codes instead of city/town name.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:25 PM | Permalink

November 9, 2005

Warning! The World In Google Maps May Be Bigger Than You Think

Just because I'm feeling kind of punchy, does anyone else think it's odd that you can convince Google Maps that the world is three times larger than reality? I mean, look at this. I've zoomed out as far as you can go, treating me to a world where the continents are repeated three times. MSN Virtual Earth is smart enough not to do that. Shouldn't Google be able to do the same? I dunno, it just irks me for some reason. FYI, from what I can see, Yahoo Maps (at least in the US) only lets you zoom out to see all the continental US.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:52 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2005

Google Local Goes Mobile

Adding to its various search services for mobile phones, Google has introduced Google Local for mobile, a stripped down version of its web-based local search, with heavy emphasis on maps and driving directions. It's a nice, but limited service, and only works on Java-enabled mobile phones at this point. More about the new service in today's SearchDay article, Google Launches Local for Mobile.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:00 AM | Permalink

November 3, 2005

Yahoo Maps Adds New Features and Tools

Yahoo has upgraded its Maps service, integrating local search results and adding a lot of cool "wow" factors to the service. They've also released a bunch of tools for developers to hack their own maps. More in today's SearchDay article, Yahoo Enhances Maps, Integrates Local Search.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:01 AM | Permalink

October 27, 2005

Cool! 3-D Imagery of the Moon Now Available via NASA's World Wind

Before Google Earth and Google Satellite began receiving the well deserved attention it receives each day, a similar 3-D open source, imagery program named World Wind was online providing access to aerial and satellite imagery from a variety of sources. If you're interested in learning more, I blogged this interesting app back in April. So, you might be wondering why I'm bringing it up again? Two words, new content! Yesterday, at the NASA Ames Lab in California, 3-D imagery of the moon was released for the World Wind platform. World Wind is free software to download and use.

The newly expanded NASA 'World Wind' computer program can 'transport' Web users to almost anyplace on the moon, when they zoom in from a global view to closer pictures of our natural satellite taken by the Clementine spacecraft in the 1990s. Computer programmers at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley originally designed the World Wind program to deliver satellite images and data of Earth to the Internet..."We have just digested the best of the Clementine images, so we can now deliver the moon at 66 feet (20 meters) of resolution," said Patrick Hogan, manager of the World Wind Project Office at NASA Ames. "This is a first. No one has ever explored our moon in the 3-D interactive environment that World Wind creates," noted Hogan.

More about this new 3-D imagery and World Wind here. A World Wind wiki is also available.

Postscript: Now word on if/when this content will be available from other sources. Of course, we do know that a certain search engine has recently announced a deal to open a research center at the NASA Ames facility.

Postscript 2: Of course, Google Moon is one of many sources of imagery of the moon.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:39 AM | Permalink

October 26, 2005

Locating Haunted Houses with MSN Virtual Earth

Just in time for time for Halloween, members of the the Virtual Earth team (aka the Poly9 boys) have used a bunch of different sources and MSN Virtual Earth technology to build the "Haunted Map." It shows where haunted houses can be found all over the USA. Think of it as a geek treat for your Halloween trick-or-treat bag.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:24 PM | Permalink

October 24, 2005

Driving Directions using MSN Virtual Earth

I just noticed a new addition of a new service to the Via VirtualEarth gallery that provides access to driving directions using Virtual Earth (U.S. only, for now) The demo (using AJAX) was created by François Joffre. Try clicking on any of the numbered items for more close-up look or text info. François explains some of the tech stuff on his Map Bazaar blog. He also points out that a new release (no word as to when it's coming) of MSN Virtual Earth will "officially" include a driving directions tool.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:09 PM | Permalink

October 19, 2005

A New Service Named HomePages Combines Real Estate Listings, Local Data, and Aerial Imagery

Danny's post from earlier today about Google possibly offering real estate listings that incorporate Google Maps in addition to his mentions of Oneonemap (UK only) and HousingMaps (U.S. only, powered by craigslist data) reminded me of a brief article I recently read in Business 2.0 discussing a new service named HomePages that's available at this point for selected areas of the U.S. HomePages takes local home sale listings, recently sold listings (useful), and places them onto aerial images that you can zoom in and out of. Cool but it gets cooler.

The service is free for users with revenue coming from real estate agents who list on the site. According to a HomePages spokesperson, the database utilizes MLS (multiple listing service) data as well as listings from other aggregators. Alerts are also available. You're also able to filter in/out, town info (crime data, etc), school info, local parks, restaurants, government buildings, and more. HomePages is operated by HouseValues Inc. of Kirkland, Washington.

The aerial imagery comes from AirPhotoUSA, which was recently acquired by GlobeXplorer. Some of the local stats and data comes from OnBoard LLC, a company that aggregates stats from various sources and also markets its own products. In many respects (minus the real estate listings) it reminds me of TerraFly, a wonderful service (its been available for years) that provides aerial imagery and local data when you click on any spot the image. More about TerraFly here.

I'm going to take HomePages out for a spin and report back soon.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:01 PM | Permalink

October 13, 2005

Mashing Up Google Maps with Wikipedia Articles

Google Maps, now integrated with Google Local, offers a lot of information about local merchants, but these detailed results typically don't include "overview" information about locations. Wikipedia, by contrast, has great general-information articles about thousands of places throughout the world.

A new service called Placeopedia maps geographic locations in Wikipedia articles onto Google Maps. It's a great feature that bolsters both services. More in today's SearchDay article, Mapping Places in Wikipedia.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 10:00 AM | Permalink

October 11, 2005

Google Says Taiwan is Now Taiwan Not Taiwan, Province of China

Via Inside Google word in a San Jose Mercury Story that Google is labelling Taiwan as Taiwan on Google Maps and no longer: Taiwan, Province of China. This story arose a few days ago when Google said calling Taiwan, Province of China is consistent with international naming conventions. Well, that less than a week ago and now Google spokesperson, Debbie Frost, says, "The recent Google change is broader than just a fix on the Taiwan map. It's an overall update of the service's "user interface,'' or what Web users see on-screen when they view any part of Google Maps." Now that's good timing.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:20 PM | Permalink

October 4, 2005

Taiwan Not Happy With Being A Chinese "Province" In Google Maps

Via SEO Book, Taiwan tells Google it is not a China province from Reuters has Taiwan asking Google to stop calling it "Taiwan, Province Of China" on Google Maps, as you can see here. Out of curiosity, I went looking at a few other hot spots to see how Google was handling them.

Macedonia is labeled that way on the map but identified as "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia," which I gather is the UN preferred name for the country. The country itself uses "The Republic Of Macedonia," which is recognized by several other countries, including the United States.

As for Cyprus, the Republic Of Cyprus is shown to occupy the entire island of Cyprus except for the two small UK-run Sovereign Base Areas. In reality, the Republic Of Cyprus occupies two-thirds of the southern half of the island, with the northern third occupied by the Turkish-backed Turkish Republic Of Northern Cyprus.

As I understand, the UN and all governments other than Turkey recognize that the Republic of Cyprus has sovereignty over the entire island, so perhaps Google might argue the label is correct. But the border between the two areas is very real, as anyone who has to cross it knows. The map simply doesn't reflect that physical reality.

How about MSN Virtual Earth? I'd say it escapes criticism in two of three cases, because it doesn't supplement the map labels with descriptions. In other words:

Taiwan is just labeled as Taiwan, with no mention of it being a province or not of China
Cyprus is just labeled as Cyprus, and while a dividing line is shown, no further labels are given to say what portion is part of the Republic of Cyprus.
Macedonia is called FYROM or FYRO Macedonia, so the choice there isn't open to interpretation. MSN is going with the UN-backed name, rather than the name the country prefers.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:01 AM | Permalink

September 22, 2005

Maps & Resources Tracking Hurricane Rita

As Hurricane Rita bears down on Texas, we're obviously hoping for the best. Some new resources for those who want to track the storm's progress are covered below, including very nice MSN Virtual Earth-powered and Google Maps-powered services.

Robert Scoble points to an MSN Virtual Earth-powered map produced by Poly9 for MSNBC. It shows where the storm has been and where it is projected to go, future points in lighter shades of white.

Hover over any future point for a bit more info on forecasted winds. Wondering how the track will impact Galveston? Hard to see on the map, because as a small town, Galveston's not shown unless you zoom in a bit. Basically, find Houston and come down at a 5 o'clock angle until you hit the coast -- or zoom in.

Sadly, if you visit either the actual MSN Virtual Earth site or MSNBC, you don't find any links to this map. How Robert found it, he doesn't say, but it should be a lot easier.

One plus to the exploring, however. MSNBC has another great Hurricane Tracker map that shows the past path and projected route, along with how the storm has grown in strength. Look to the left of the map, and you'll see links for past storms in 2004 and 2005, including Katrina.

Doc Searls points to Central Florida Hurricane Center 2005, or flhurricane.com. As the site says, this is not some official government site but a nice resource run by weather hobbyists.

They've got a Google Maps-based storm track you can follow -- where the storm has been, where it's expected to go, and info when you click on any of the pinned points along the way.

I think it's much nicer with the hybrid view switched on, and Galveston shows easily with only slight zooming. Also check out the legend that explains the storm strength as show with colored dots.

Steve Rubel notes you can now get weather feeds via Yahoo, by the way. I didn't think this was new, but they're adding so much, it's hard to keep track! A page with severe weather alerts is here, Texas here, but these are sent via email only. A Yahoo News feed for "Hurricanes & Topical Storms" is here -- and those who prefer to read online can see the Full Coverage area for hurricanes here.

Hurricane Rita Takes Aim at Texas Coast from Gary yesterday also notes some other news resources tracking Rita. Basically, pick your usual news source suspect, and they're going to be doing something.

FYI, I remarked to my wife when Ophelia came along how quickly we were going through the hurricane alphabet. What happens if we hit Z (or really W, the last letter actually used)? MSNBC writes we move to the Greek alphabet, along with nice background on how storms are named.

Postscript from Gary: More Maps.

From ESRI: A large collection of maps, imagery, and data for both Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina
From Geodata.gov: Hurricane Rita Tracking Map
From the Harris County (Houston area) Office of Emergency Management: Real-time, interactive rainfall map.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:35 AM | Permalink

September 21, 2005

Mobile Access + Local Search + GPS

A new article from News.com: Tech turns phones into back-seat drivers, reports on a presentation at Demofall today of the Destinator Anywhere Server. It along with personal versions of the product allow mobile searchers to use their GPS enabled phone or mobile device to find and access info based on where they're located.

Essentially, the technology is a mix of services like Yahoo Local (which provides comprehensive listings of local businesses and attractions) and mobile phones incorporating GPS...When the Destinator service is instructed to look up, say, a sushi restaurant in some specific town, it interfaces with Yahoo Local and comes up with a list of choices. When the user selects a choice, the service creates a map and proceeds to direct the user to the sashimi, speaking out the directions as they drive.

You can learn more about Destinator here. Darn, it's presently not available for my Treo 650.

You've got to think that with the massive amount of interest in both local and mobile search these days, Destinator and companies offering similar types of technology would be ripe for acquisition by some of the large web search players.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:10 PM | Permalink

September 15, 2005

MSN's Katrina Flyover Offers Many Before-And-After Views Of New Orleans

Katrina Flyover is a new MSN Virtual Earth-powered service that lets you click on camera icons scatted throughout New Orleans to get a birds-eye, before-and-after view of the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

I found it a bit buggy, especially in Firefox, where I couldn't get the "after" images to load and the "before" images didn't fill the window properly. It didn't work at first with Internet Explorer, but after reloading, I got along fine.

There's lot and lots to explore. It would be easier if you could see the camera icons when zoomed out just a bit beyond the default level, but you can't. So be sure to scroll around the screen once you see the camera icons, to see just how many points have been mapped.

Chris Pirillo gives some background info here on the project, which was captured by planes last week. Robert Scoble points to this brief mention of the project by one of the developers involved. Robin Good has an excellent review with screenshots and background information here.

See also our past Looking for Katrina Images On Google & Yahoo and Post-Katrina Images On Google Maps, Elsewhere, People Finding Project & Wiki Resources posts for other ways to see views of the area.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:48 AM | Permalink

September 12, 2005

Looking for Katrina Images On Google & Yahoo

Over the weekend I went searching for Hurricane Katrina imagery in the Google Images and Yahoo Images databases. It's been two weeks since the storm hit the now devastated gulf coast and I wanted to determine what a typical user might find when entering the simple but descriptive query [Hurricane Katrina] in the image search box at Google and Yahoo.

At Google Images only 36 images (I'm not kidding, are seen on the results pages (screen cap here) and the relevancy of a few of these images are questionable (they have nothing to do with the storm and the devastatlon it caused).

Btw, I ran the search several times over the weekend to make sure a technical error was causing so few images to appear.

Many of the images that Google does offer are charts and maps of the storm before it slammed into the gulf coast. If you're looking for imagery that illustrates the destruction Katrina caused, you'll find very few. I was surprised that with the tens of thousands of images found on the open web, I would have found more. Perhaps this exercise also gives us some idea about how often Google Images is updated?

How did Yahoo Images do with the Hurricane Katrina query?

MUCH better than Google.

The total estimated number of images for the [Hurricane Katrina] query at Yahoo Images is over 6,100 but that number means little since I was only able to view 531. That said, most -- but not all -- of these images have a direct relationship to the storm and its aftermath. You'll find images from various sources culled from the open web along with imagery available from Yahoo News.

One thing I was unable to find via in either Google Images or Yahoo Images was material from the FEMA Photo Library, U.S. Dept of Defense Image Collection, and other sources inclding Orbimage and DigitalGlobe. Of course, this once again illustrates why knowledge of specialized/fcoused databases is so important.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:59 AM | Permalink

September 8, 2005

Dig A Hole Through Earth Via Google Maps

Awesome! The next time one of my kids asks what would happen if they dug down through the earth -- at least where would they come up at -- I've got the answer. Spotted via Google Blogoscoped, If I dig a very deep hole, where I go to stop? lets you click anywhere on a world map via Google. A little note will pop-up saying "Dig Here." Click on the link, and you'll see where you come up.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:22 AM | Permalink

September 1, 2005

Hurricane Katrina Resources & Aerial Images

Trying to understand visually more of what happened in the terrible wake of Hurricane Katrina? Over at ResourceShelf (one of Gary's other blogs), this page provides links to lots of aerial imagery plus further links to news resources.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:23 AM | Permalink

August 6, 2005

Forget Static Satellite Images, How About Real-Time Satellite Imagery?

With everyone so in love with satellite and aerial imagery these days (Google Maps, Google Earth, MSN Virtual Earth, TerraFly, World Wind from NASA, and many others) it might be that the static aerial/satellite images that we're using today are just a stepping stone to real-time and interactive imagery from space.

According to the article: Zoom with a view: your home from space, an Australian company, Astrovision Australia, will one day allow you to zoom into real-time imagery from one of of several satellites.

Note: AstroVision Australia Owns the exclusive license in the Asia-Pacific. More about Astrovision International here.

Of course, while the technology sounds very cool, the privacy issues are very overwhelming (understatement).

"You can even pick up things like the pollution from an oil tanker spill and watch it live. If you own a holiday house in Queensland and there's a cyclone, you can see if the house is in danger - or if there's a bushfire you can monitor it." [Company managing director Michael] Hewins predicted that real-time, high-resolution images delivered over the internet, showing details such as streets and backyards, are just 15 years away - a prospect certain to raise privacy and security concerns.

The article points out that the company has talked with Google (who doesn't talk with Mt. View?) but I wouldn't doubt that they'll be talking to other interested parties about partnerships. It's also not hard to imagine one of many companies making an investment in Astrovision.

A quick look at the Astrovision Australia and Astrovision Internataional sites clued me into some additional info:

Vital Stats about Astrovision Intl. and their Technology
In 2008, AstroVision Australia Limited intends to deliver the first live, continuous true color image stream of the Earth.
According to this story, Apple technology will power the AstroVision Australia "feed"

Posted by Gary Price at 5:50 PM | Permalink

July 29, 2005

View Google Maps & MSN Virtual Earth Side-By-Side

Spotted via Phil Bradley, Virtual Earth and Google Maps, side-by-side lets you see the same area's satellite view in Google Maps and MSN's Virtual Earth service. Slick!

Postscript (from Gary): I've found that copying and pasting a url works best. Otherwise, you'll need to be very specific when entering an address of a location. For example, entering only a city name doesn't appear to work. Also, this tool doesn't allow you to see how far you can zoom-in to a location. Althought this varies from address to address and from service to service, I've noticed that for many of the locations I've searched for, Virtual Earth offers a "closer" look.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:21 AM | Permalink

July 25, 2005

Download Aerial Imagery and Access Detailed Local Info

A couple of people emailed me asking if I knew of a specialized database where they could download (for free) high-quality satellite and aerial imagery. The answer is yes.

You'll notice with MSN Virtual Earth that much of the imagery comes from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). If you're interested in downloading some of this material as TIFF files, go to: http://seamless.usgs.gov.

Spend some time reading the documentation. This is a powerful resource if you spend some time learning how to use it. You'll also see that Seamless.usgs provides some access to non-U.S. imagery. Remember, the imagery that's available for one location might now be available for another. "Seamless" also allows you to overlay data on top of images.

TerraServer-USA from Microsoft has been around for years and also provides access to much of the same imagery that's now available from MSN Virtual Earth. Each entry also contains the data the image was taken.

TerraServer-USA also allows you to find imagery by geographic coordinates, place (for example, Wrigley Field) and other criteria.

TerraServer offers direct links (when available) to high-quality images, aerial images, and topographic maps. Images are available in three sizes. You can also print, e-mail, and/or save imagery to your computer. Links at the bottom of each page provide access to basic demographic data about the area you're looking at. It's potentially useful stuff for the web researcher. It's one thing to see an aerial image but knowing about what you're looking at makes the service even cooler and more useful.

However, what TerraServer-USA offers in terms of data is just the tip of the iceberg. If detailed information about the specific area you're viewing is of interest, I suggest taking a look at a free service called TerraFly. I've blogged about it before.

What makes TerraFly different than other services is the amazing amount of textual data it offers.

To access, simply click a spot on the aerial image. A new window will open containing census info, a list of streets, local business names, recent fires, weather, etc. If you click on another location, even a few blocks away, you'll likely get different information. This "experimental" page offers even more data.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:58 PM | Permalink

MSN Releases Beta Version of Virtual Earth

Last May, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates began touting MSN Virtual Earth, the company's response to Google Earth. Gates demonstrated striking 45-degree oblique views of Manhattan with beautiful 3-D images of buildings—something Google Earth could only provide using boxlike geometric shapes.

MSN Virtual Earth launched today, but without those luscious images that Gates promised. The program also lacks the smooth interface offered by Google Earth, though it does have a few interesting features that Google Earth doesn't offer, at least for now. Also, we know Microsoft has found religion when it comes to search, and has backed its efforts with smart people and money, so despite the rough edges, I'm optimistic about what we'll eventually see with Virtual Earth. Today's SearchDay article, Microsoft Launches MSN Virtual Earth, has more.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 12:00 AM | Permalink

July 18, 2005

Where's My Bus (or Train or Plane)?, Services That Offer Real-Time Info and Maps

If you've never taken a look at the NextBus.com service you should. It's one of those resources that's not only very useful (if it's available in your area) but also very cool. It's also another example of real-time info on the web.

NextBus.com has been available for several years, long before the Google Ride Finder service was announced in March.

NextBus describes precisely what this free service offers. Users can click and find out when the next bus, train, water taxi, etc. will arrive at a specific location. As you've probably already figured out, NextBus uses GPS technology to predict when a vehicle will arrive at a specific location. You can learn more about how the technology works here.

Since online mapping is all the rage these days, you'll be happy to learn that NextBus also provides live maps that allow you to quickly visualize the current location of a vehicle.

I wouldn't doubt that one of these days we'll see one of the large online service like Yahoo, MapQuest, or MSN work with NextBus (and other providers) to make this real-time info available on their map products. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised that we haven't seen this already.

An e-mail alert service is also provided that notifies you when you're bus/train/water taxi is about to arrive. Cool!

Since you might not be always in front of a computer but still want to know when the next vehicle will be arriving, NextBus also offers a mobile version of the service.

Currently, NextBus is available for more than 20 transportation services in the US. The San Francisco Muni, Boulder, CO RTD, New York Water Taxi, and the Portland, OR Streetcar are a few of them.

NextBus is not the only real-time transport info service out there.

The new owner of NextBus, Grey Island Systems, provides similar services elsewhere including this one in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. King County, WA also offers this info.

Finally, I'm sure many of know you can also track aircraft in the US/Canadian system in real-time. For example, this service allows you to track commercial flights from many airlines and then places the info on a map. Simply reload for the latest info. Want to track a plane from a mobile device? Here's one service that I use.

Postscript: On a related note, this CNN article takes a look at a new SMS (text-messaging) service in the UK that offers real-time flight info. What the article doesn't mention is that both 4info.net and Synfonic are two US-based SMS services that provide real-time flight info.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:23 AM | Permalink

July 11, 2005

Yahoo Maps Mash-Ups Begin Rolling Out

It has been about two weeks since Yahoo released an API for Yahoo Maps. Since then, developers have started releasing "mash-ups" that overlay various types of info on top of Yahoo Maps. Here's a list of a few of them.

Headlines from Yahoo News Overlaid on a Map of the U.S.

Crime-map for Potrero Hill, a Neighborhood in San Francisco

Map of San Diego Area Bloggers

Map of Business and Services Located in a Milwaukee Neighborhood

Map of Locations (Wineries, Restaurants) Used in the Film "Sideways"

The Yahoo Maps Web Services mailing list is a resource to monitor for new mash-ups.

Postscript: Greg Kelsey notes that it's now possible to map rental listings from Yahoo Real Estate

Posted by Gary Price at 7:07 PM | Permalink

Ask Jeeves UK Begins Offering "Local Search" Services

Over the weekend I noticed that Ask Jeeves UK is beginning to roll out some local search services. You'll now find clickable links on the AJ UK homepage to driving directions and maps for the UK and Ireland. Both services are branded as part of "Ask Jeeves Local."

Posted by Gary Price at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Google Maps Mania For Centralized Look At Google Maps Projects

Spotted via Tara, Google Maps Mania is a much needed resource covering those making use of Google Maps in various ways. See the right-hand navigation at the blog for various mapping projects grouped by category. It would be nice to see Google itself offer this type of compilation, as well.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:57 AM | Permalink

June 30, 2005

The Birth of A9 Maps; Block View Imagery Added for More Cities

With the release of API's for Google Maps and Yahoo Maps, non-developers might be start thinking that there is nothing new in the world of online maps to talk about. WRONG. Greg Linden has an overview on his blog about the new online maps from A9.com.

I've only had a short time to use A9 Maps but will try to spend more time using the service over the weekend. However, after just using A9 Maps for a few minutes, I have to agree with Greg, they've has done an impressive job of integrating the maps with the "block view" imagery they began offering in January as part of their visual yellow pages service.

and speaking of the A9 Visual Yellow Pages...

I've also noticed that A9 has added "block view" imagery for several more cities.

Here's a list of the new locations:

Austin, TX
Detroit
Philadelphia
San Diego
San Jose (previously listed with San Francisco/Bay Area)

Posted by Gary Price at 10:16 AM | Permalink

June 28, 2005

Google Earth Launches, Goes Free

Google has taken the wraps off of Google Earth, a standalone application that combines its Keyhole 3D satellite imagery with the best features of Google Local and Maps. Chris Sherman finds it an awesome application that not only provides accurate search results but provides compelling, birds-eye views of virtually the entire planet. He provides more details about the product, now free to anyone in today's SearchDay article, Google Earth Flies Free. Also see Google Earth Launching For Free? Launches For Free from InsideGoogle for another review with screenshots, as well as First Impressions: Google's Amazing Earth from PC World for an even longer review stuffed with screenshots.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:16 AM | Permalink

June 21, 2005

Google Maps Now Offering Satellite Imagery In Lots Of Places

OK, it looks like more than the US and UK now have satellite images in Google Maps. Here's detailed views of Rome, Athens and Barcelona. Here's a global view that shows the world at low detail. Here's a section of Italy with better detail, but still no resolution of things like streets. But other areas have greater detail. Clearly a rollout of better maps has happened and may continue to. And we're sure it's not in reaction to MSN releasing aerial coverage in its own mapping product for the US earlier today. Looking for high detail maps? Gary found it easier to search for cities to get them, rather than to zoom in.

And thanks to El Telendro for the tip.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:21 PM | Permalink

June 14, 2005

Google Already Has 3D City Maps

So is Google really working on a plan to create 3D maps of major cities, as rumored last week? Heck, it turns out the company already has these type of maps. They are available to those beta testing the latest version of Google's Keyhole software, AKA, Google Earth.

Check out the screenshots here and here for examples of the 3D renderings of nearly 40 cities. Is the data coming out of the rumored Google program. Nope. It comes from third parties, Google says.

OK, it could be that those third parties are working on behalf of Google. Or maybe Google is running its own 3D mapping program in addition to using third party data. In either case, Google said it won't comment on rumor or speculation.

The 3D mapping program is something different than the non-3D city block photographing project, which we know Google is involved with. After all, Google is credited on the home page of that project as funding it.

Any news of what will happen with that project, such as an attempt to rival A9's Block View feature? Google has no details to reveal, sending this statement:

Google supports many university research projects worldwide, but we have not made announcements related to the project you're referring to.

Back to 3D, Brad Hill dug up some nice research about a non-Google affiliated Berkeley project doing and a PDF research paper on the subject. None of this is specific to what Google may or may not have underway, but it should please those looking for more about such projects.

Postscript: SiliconValleyWatch, which originally reported news of a 3D project, has posted a picture of where the mapping truck is kept.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:16 PM | Permalink

June 9, 2005

A Collection Of "Forbidden" Satellite and Aerial Images

Remember, the story from a few weeks ago about someone spotting a stealth bomber in a Google satellite image? Well, if you're interested in other interesting things and locations seen from the sky, read on.

Long before Google was providing access to satellite and aerial images the Cryptome archive has been building a collection of satellite and aerial images that look at "interesting" locations using open-source imagery provided by various organizations including the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Direct access to the USGS database of aerial imagery is available here.

It's uncertain if the makers of UFOs visiting earth will be upset at this spotting from Google Maps, however.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:25 PM | Permalink

June 8, 2005

UK: New Service Offers Aerial Images to Real Estate Buyers

You've likely read about the Google satellite images "hack" that provides satellite/aerial images for properties available for rent via the Craiglist database.

Now, the always useful MultiMap service is working with UK real estate agent, Spicerhaart, to provide aerial images of properties to people looking to purchase real estate. More info in this Netimperative article.

192.com is another database that provides free access to satellite/aerial imagery for many United Kingdom locations. Details in this post.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:06 AM | Permalink

May 31, 2005

Finding Your Way Around in London

Search Engine Strategies London gets underway tomorrow, and all of us attending the conference will also be spending time navigating this ancient, sprawling city in search of food, drink and merriment. To help the out-of-towners get around, I've pulled together an article for today's SearchDay called Navigating London, with links to some of the best maps and other sources of local information for ye Olde Town. There's also a link to a very cool restaurant finder that not only helps you find a place to eat—it also shows you a 360 degree panorama of the eatery's interior so you can decide whether you like the ambience before you go.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 6:58 AM | Permalink

May 23, 2005

MSN Virtual Earth To Take On Google Earth

Microsoft sends news today that founder Bill Gates has announced a MSN Virtual Earth service is to debut in the summer. The service is promised to provide:

Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods
Satellite images with street map overlays
Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants

The service will allow users to choose from a number of different data types plus allow people to contribute their own information. The announcement came today at the D3 conference happening this week.

Here are some screenshots from the service to come. You can click on the first to make it larger:

Last week, Google announced that its Keyhole software allowing satellite views of the Earth will be renamed Google Earth. Better images will also be available to those getting satellite views via Google Maps. In addition, Google Maps has also been getting enhanced by others adding on data from other sources. More on this in is covered in our Google Factory Tour Recap post.

So, the planned Microsoft service will help MSN compete against some Google gains in this area, not to mention moves others like Yahoo have been making with maps. Some past reading you may find interesting on these topics:

Google Maps Not In Google Search; Comparing Services & How Do They Do That?
Satellite/Aerial Images Plus Local Info
Super Cool: Interact With Satellite and Aerial Images With NASA's World Wind Program

World Wind Central (a wiki)

Just Map It!

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:52 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2005

Multimap: Wireless Web Access to Maps for More than 50 Countries

Danny blogged today about the launch of Google Local, Maps and Mobile for the UK. In his post he mentions 192.com, an online directory that offers aerial/satellite images. Later I blogged about Yell.com offering local search and maps via SMS for the United Kingdom.

Allow me to toss out another service for mobile access to maps. Multimap offers both web-based (some local info also available) and wireless web access to maps for more than 50 countries including Australia and Canada. The wireless version of Multimap is at: http://www.multimap.com/.

Multimap also offers aerial/satellite images for a fee. However, they do provide free access to aerial images for a few UK locations. Enjoy!

+ Buckingham Palace + The Lake District + Stonehenge + Stamford Bridge + Windsor Castle + Tower of London + York Minster + Millennium Wheel + Hampton Court Palace + Lulworth Cove

Btw, watch what happens when you place your cursor on an aerial image. You should see a map overlay the image. Cool!

Posted by Gary Price at 7:44 PM | Permalink

Google UK Gets Local Listings & Maps

Google Local UK has now launched. Not listed? Some data is gathered in partnership with Yell.com. Want to search locally on your mobile? A Google Local SMS service is also offered (though doesn't appear fully implemented yet). It's supposed to be similar to what rolled out for the US last week. Texting instructions for Google Local UK are here.

Google Maps UK has also now launched. Yes, you can even drag your way across the Atlantic and over to the US, if you like. Satellite coverage as provided by Google Maps in the US is not yet online.

Can't wait? UK's 192.com Directory Database Relaunches; Aerial Images for Many UK Locations Available from Gary earlier this month explains another service you can try for those aerial views. You can also try TerraServer, World Wind (see Gary's review),

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:58 AM | Permalink

April 10, 2005

Satellite/Aerial Images Plus Local Info

With all of the interest in satellite and aerial images these days I thought TerraFly, a service from Florida Int. University (with support from IBM), was worthy of another mention on the blog. Terrafly not only offers interactive satellite/aerial images but also provides local info for most of these images. It's very easy to try the service.

+ Go to: http://terrafly.fiu.edu and enter an address or location or pick one of the recommended starting points.

+ Wait for an image to appear.

+ Next, choose a location on the image and click.

+ Another window should open containing local info about the location. For example, when I searched for the aerial image for my house the local info page contained: + Census info + The names of nearby streets + Schools + Hotels + Restaurants + Much more Cool!

TerraFly has been online for about five years and has been featured in the NY Times and has Yahoo Pick of the Week.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:35 PM | Permalink

April 7, 2005

UK's 192.com Directory Database Relaunches; Aerial Images for Many UK Locations Available

Both Revolution and Netimperative report that 192.com, an online directory enquiry service from the UK has just relaunched. The online directory enquiry used to rely on subscriptions for revenue but will now rely on advertising. Some "extended" information is still available by subscription but it's even possible to earn credits to view the data for free.

Revenues, previously generated by subscriptions, will now be focused on online advertising via a new priority listings product, which enables listed businesses to pay to appear at the top of the search results.

Four categories of search are available and available from tabs on the 192.com home page: + People + Businesses + Classified/Local + Maps

Need an aerial view of a location? 192.com now offers aerial views for many UK locations. Here's an example.

The content that 192.com searches (they claim about 130 million entries) comes from a variety of sources including BT, Thomson, Dun & Bradstreet and the Electoral Roll.

The firm has also introduced a web-based mobile phone tracking system, ?Phone Track?, targeted at parents wanting to keep an eye on their childrens? whereabouts.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:42 PM | Permalink

April 5, 2005

Super Cool: Interact With Satellite and Aerial Images With NASA's World Wind Program

I thought I would toss out another cool satellite and aerial image tool on our blog since Chris wrote about Google Local adding satellite images from Keyhole in SearchDay.

Note: I've only been using this service for a few days so expect more in a future blog post or SearchDay article.

The tools is called World Wind and is a FREE piece of software (Windows only) from NASA that allows you to easily search and manipulate many terabytes of satellite images, aerial images, and topographical maps from various sources including Terraserver that Chris mentions in his article. Here's how the service describes itself:

World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.

Major landmarks around the globe can be marked on images. In fact, icons are clickable and link to a Wikipedia entry about the landmark. If you like how you easily you can manipulate/move Google Maps, you can do just about the same thing here.

This is only one of the many amazing things you can do with this service. World Wind comes from the NASA's Learning Technologies. More cool tools on their site. This post from the World Wind Forums does a nice job providing info about a few of the services strong points and weaknesses compared to what other services provide.

I've found this chart very helpful. It offers a explanation of how to use World Wind and introduces the different datasets available. A real timesaver!!! Btw, switching from one data set to another is easy. All you need to do is click.

World Wind also has a wiki and online forums (World Wind Central) where you can get help and find some of the latest "cool" images that people have found. This post offers a good overview of what World Wind offers compared to other services.

OK, I'm heading back to use World Wind right now. It's quite addictive. Mo

Finally, I'm happy to see that Chris mentioned TerraFly in his article today. This is a great service. If you're looking for info about a local area, it's amazing. Simply find a satellite or aerial image of interest, click on a specific location and as Chris points out you'll find Census info, street names and more. You'll also find nearby hotels, schools, and other local info.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:16 PM | Permalink

April 4, 2005

I Can See Your House From Here: Google Satellite Images In Maps

Google has integrated the satellite imagery it acquired with its Keyhole acquisition into the maps it displays on Google Maps and Google Local. You can drag images around, zoom in or out, or even overlay driving directions using the same interface Google introduced with its new Google Maps service back in February.

Tomorrow's SearchDay article describes the new features integrated into Google Maps. Google Debuts Satellite Images is available to SEW blog readers now.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 9:50 PM | Permalink

February 28, 2005

New Services from MSN Maps

News of a few new services from MSN Maps this afternoon.

+ An option to paste a formatted address from a web page, Word document, etc. into a search box. This saves you the time of having to reformat the location into the various search boxes required to do a map search. This option has been available for several weeks but was formally announced today. A nice timesaver.

+ Find businesses along a route. At the moment, you can map locations for three hotel chains and Target stores.

+ You are now able to directly link to maps.

+ Detailed street level geographic coverage has added for Australia, Belgium and Spain, and the service is now available on MSN Latino.

+ Not new but just noticed, MSN offers real-time traffic info and maps for many metropolitan areas in the U.S. You can even have traffic alerts sent to your mobile device via SMS. Yahoo launched a real-time traffic info service in December.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:01 PM | Permalink

February 15, 2005

Just Map It!

If you're interested in learning about the companies that provide Google, Yahoo, MSN, Mapquest and many others the data for their digital map services, a Newsweek article: It's the Road Now Taken, offers an overview of the two companies that provide most of the data, Navteq and Tele Atlas. You'll also read about the people who drive around updating each companies database.

Thanks to Directions for the tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:05 PM | Permalink

February 11, 2005

Google Maps Not In Google Search; Comparing Services & How Do They Do That?

Nice catch from Tara, finding in Google Maps Not Integrated into Google Search? that the new Google Maps service launched this week has yet to replace either Yahoo Maps or MapQuest in what comes up in Google web search results. C'mon -- make it an option :)

Meanwhile, nice story from the AP pitting Google Maps against MapQuest, Yahoo Maps and MSN Maps and finding those services aren't replaceable yet. MSN gets marks for going beyond North America and driving features. But Yahoo gets a "hands-down" win for ease of use and functionality. But Google is praised for looks-and-feel, plus the cool ease of dragging maps. For more, see Google's maps aesthetically appealing, but features need work.

Meanwhile, how does Google Maps work? Via Boing Boing, here's an explanation.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:10 AM | Permalink

February 8, 2005

A Few Minutes With Google Maps

I've just spent a small amount of time "playing" with the new Google Maps service.

+ The Google Maps themselves look very nice on my computer screen and are easy to use. While the slider is useful to zoom in and out of a location, I would also like to be able to click on the map itself to do this.

+ You've probably already noticed that the Navteq supplies some of the map info to Google. Navteq also supplies map data to Yahoo Maps, MSN Maps, and MapQuest

+ MSN Maps offers the very useful "Paste An Address" feature. Using it, you can take an address from any web page and search it without having to fill-in the address and location boxes. Google and Yahoo should also offer something like it.

+ While Google Maps are a good size (vs. MSN and Yahoo) when first landing on the page, Yahoo and MSN maps can be made much larger. Look for the "Map Size" boxes on MSN Maps and the "Make Map Larger" link at Yahoo Maps.

+ In terms of mapping entries from Google Local onto Google Maps. It works well. That said, I still have issues with some of the quality/accuracy of the data that's now being mapped. I've been writing about these issues since Google Local launched last year. Yes, I understand that Google Local and Google Maps are beta but I'll still share a few examples.

Search for: Hotels near LAX (used as an example on the Google Maps home page). + The third result, Capistrano's is not a hotel but a restaurant. + I'm sure that other hotels and motels exist near LAX. What about a link to quickly show more locations?

On the Google Maps tour page, you'll find the example search: great sushi in New York. What makes these restaurants great? Does just having the word "great" close to a restaurants address/phone number make them great? I'm sure these NYC sushi establishments will not be happy to learn that they're "bad sushi restaurants" because a single person said they were bad on a message board. Why are these dentists listed as bad?

+ As I've pointed out in the past, the lack of a strong controlled vocabulary (to bring like things together) also causes problems. A search for lawyers 20901 returns different results than attorneys 20901. Yahoo results are identical for both terms.

+ A search for cell phones, Lawrence KS turns up a beauty salon in addition to returning different results than cellular phones. Car Dealers 20901 returns different results than Auto Dealers 20901. Why?

+ Finally, I searched and mapped, "Search Engine" in Mountain View, California. What did I learn? In addition to Google offering search technology: + Arinell Pizza (35 miles away) + The Roofers Joint Apprenticeship Training Program + Comfort Inn-Hayward are also search companies located in the Mountain View area. (-:

Almost forgot. When Google Local launched I had some fun showing that Osama Bin Laden could be found at various locations. Today, I learned and was able to map that Bin Laden could be hiding out at the Googleplex (note letter G). (-:

Posted by Gary Price at 1:23 PM | Permalink

New Google Maps Now Live

Google has released a new Google Maps service via its Google Labs site. Covering the United States, it allows you to drag maps around to find a new location, rather than the usual method of clicking to recenter and reload a page.

Once you've selected an area, you can then keyword search to make local information appear on the map. For pizza places on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, it worked pretty well. For apartment rentals, the map suddenly zoomed out from a scale of about 1 mile to 50 miles. But zooming back helped to show places I knew should be listed.

To do the searches, I found the area I was interested in, then used the search box above the map. A Local Search link above the map can also be selected. Doing that will let you specifically say to search the map below or you can enter a new city and/or search location. A Directions link brings up two boxes allowing you to enter a starting and ending address to generate driving directions, in the map and with turn-by-turn guidance.

On the Google Maps home page, you'll also find boxes to generate directions on the right-hand side of the page, as well as boxes letting you locate a local business or zoom directly to a location.

Google Maps doesn't offer traffic information, as was recently added to Yahoo Maps. See Yahoo Offers Real-Time Traffic Reports for more about that. Yahoo Maps vs. MapQuest looks at an LA Times article on Yahoo's own work to further develop its own mapping system. And from Chris Sherman, Yahoo Enhances Local Search with Maps looks at how Yahoo Maps allows for local information to be added to Yahoo Maps.

For more, see the Google Maps FAQ and tour pages. Want to discuss or comment? Visit our forum thread, Google Maps: Fresh out of Google Labs.

Postscript: Also see Gary's A Few Minutes With Google Maps

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:17 AM | Permalink

January 10, 2005

Yahoo Maps vs. MapQuest

The LA Times Chris Gaither in: Overtaking MapQuest a Challenge for Yahoo, takes a look at what Yahoo is doing to gain market share from MapQuest in the online map arena.

Gaither writes, "But when it comes to challenging the market leader in maps, Yahoo hasn't had as much luck. MapQuest has widened its lead in recent months despite Yahoo's enhancements."

The article includes discussion of their dynamic Smart View technology that Chris wrote about last March. I can personally report that this is my "go to" service when needing map, direction, and local merchant info.

Most telling is a quote by a MapQuest user that focuses on the brand loyalty that people have towards this service.

"I've been using MapQuest forever, and I'm pretty familiar with it," he said. "It's quick and easy."

This illustrates something I've written about on several occassions, it's one thing to develop new, and in the case of Yahoo Maps, useful search services but it's something else to get people to try it and then use it on a regular basis. I've also experienced this type of loyalty in the web search arena when trying to get people to take a look at new or different services.

"It's probably true that Yahoo has added more features, but adding more features doesn't always mean more customer adoption," MapQuest General Manager Tommy McGloin said. "We've held the line despite some good competition."

Finally, the article discusses what Google might be up to with its purchase of Keyhole.

and speaking of aerial images and maps... Have you tried TerraFly from Florida International University? It's free. Enter an address (U.S. only), find aerial images, click on a location and find out local info including nearby schools, census data, hotels, etc. Very cool!

Posted by Gary Price at 11:44 AM | Permalink

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