The first time anyone uses Google Earth, the reaction is invariably “wow.” Having the ability to seamlessly zoom and pan on satellite imagery of virtually the entire planet is just plain cool. Once the novelty has worn off, though, what then? The good news is that Google Earth offers much more than tricked-out eye candy. You can do a lot with the program, including saving “placemarks” annotated with detailed information about a location, and even stitch these labeled placemarks together into an animated tour with minimal effort.
Today’s SearchDay article, Hacking Google Earth, offers hands-on instructions on using these features, and also describes web sites that offer shared “tours” for Google Earth that span the breadth of the planet.