Mike Blumenthal offers a provocative post this morning about Google’s apparent decision to end its relationship (at least in the US) with mapping data provider TeleAtlas. Recall that Google previously had a relationship with NAVTEQ, which ended some time after the acquisition of that company by Nokia. TeleAtlas was substituted and there was even an […]
Google has pushed more deeply into “crowdsourcing” with Maps, now enabling users to “report a problem” in addition to making edits themselves on maps. According to the Google LatLong blog: You’ll find this “Report a Problem” link on the bottom right of Google Maps (you can also find it by right-clicking on the map). Has […]
Google announced a new feature for Google Maps and a new feature for Google Maps for Mobile. The first feature allows you to plot multiple searches on the same map. This comes in handy when you want to get driving directions, plus plot the various gas stations, golf courses, supermarkets and so on, along the […]
Google has announced a minor change to its search results page for some geographic-based queries. To fill in the white space that used to appear next to the small map, Google is now pulling in user-contributed photos from its Panoramio photo-sharing site. (Marketers: This is another reason to start using Panoramio if you’re not already.) […]
Google Maps has introduced a useful new feature called “What’s Here,” which allows you to use the map as a kind of discovery tool. Select a point, right click and the menu appears with a new choice “what’s here,” allowing discovery of — you guessed it — what’s at/around the designated site or point. The […]
Google Operating System noticed that Google Maps has added a new layer named Webcams. Clicking on that layer, will show you some of the available webcams available on the roads you are looking at. For example, I zoomed into the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey to New York City and it showed me […]
Yesterday Google provided another round of Transit updates. These include more cities globally as well as full public transit schedules for a number of new cities in Canada, the UK, Houston, Texas and throughout the state of Virginia. Separately Google now says that its community mapping tool Map Maker is available in 27 languages: We […]
Google is having a special event today featuring former US vice president Al Gore to announce its new Google Earth 5.0 software that features new underwater views of the world’s oceans (Google Ocean) and 3D views, as well as “historic imagery” that allows people to see the earth back in time through archived satellite views […]
The Virtual Earth Blog announced that they have updated the data and images for some locations. The update includes data refreshes to Greece, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Mexico. In addition Microsoft did global vector […]
Brad Geddes reports that Google has updated their AdWords Quality Score to now include geographic information in the quality score algorithm. If you take a look at the Google page on the Quality Score, you will see a line that reads: Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown.
Microsoft has announced they released a new Live Search Maps India plus new imagery to Virtual Earth.
The Google AdWords blog announced the addition of a new report in the reporting center, named the geographic performance report. The report will detail approximate Country, Region, Metro, and City data and give you data on a account, campaign, and ad group level. The performance statistics available on these geographic reports include impressions, clicks, CTR, […]
Google is seeking to simplify and consolidate some of the multi-media content on Google Earth associated with particular places. Accordingly, it has created a “Places” layer that tries to bring together a variety of content on a single page about a place. A gray box, which Google likens to a “stack of photographs,” indicates one […]
The Google LatLong Blog announced the expansion of imagery for Google StreetView to include Japan and Australia. The post also said that images have been released for 30 new US cities, including New Orleans. Europe is on the way but privacy hurdles need to be cleared first. Google recently introduced StreetView images for the Tour […]
Google is now showing "search customization" messages to inform searchers when their search results have been modified from "normal" due to a searcher’s geographic location, previous query or web surfing and search history. It’s a nice move to help searchers know what exactly is going on "under the hood" at Google and override it if […]
Tired of searching for “Paris” (France) on YouTube and mostly seeing video of Paris Hilton? A new geographic search feature (reported first by NewTeeVee) should take care of that. Video uploading users have been able to geotag videos on YouTube but not easily search for video by location. By contrast, Google Earth allows searching for […]
No matter how much 3D, imagery, flash, and other impressive functionality you build into maps, data are the core of the experience. And improving local data is like building the pyramids in a sense. It takes lots of effort from many people. For this reason Google opened up Google Maps to community editing in March […]
There’s an interesting analogy to the 15th and 16th Centuries when European explorers (or colonialists) were out sailing and mapping the globe. The world was not entirely known and mapped at that time. So it is today on the Internet. While many areas are highly developed and well documented in online mapping, there are others […]
As the price of gasoline is speeds toward $5.00, it’s no surprise that tools helping consumers find less expensive gas are gaining visibility and popularity. Search Engine Journal and Google Maps Mania both have had nice roundups recently. Below, a look at some of the tools from them plus some additional ones and whether the […]
Google’s John Hanke keynoted the Where 2.0 conference this morning and discussed the development and evolution of the “geoweb.” But he also announced that KML files (now a public standard) and GeoRSS data (I believe) being indexed by Google are now going to be available to third parties via the Google API. That means things […]
This past weekend a cyclone hit Myanmar (formerly Burma), killing at least 15,000 with many more missing. It’s a massive tragedy. Now data on the cyclone and its path, from the UN Institute for Training and Research Operational Satellite Applications Programme, are available as a layer in Google Earth. But there are other maps and […]
Yahoo just announced that it has added a nifty tool to Local (called “search circle”) that allows uses to alter the geographic scope of results by expanding or narrowing a circle on the map. The circle can also be dragged to a particular area easily, allowing for more efficient neighborhood search (screenshots below and on […]
A new version of Microsoft’s Live Search Maps has rolled out (after yesterday’s major traffic and routing upgrade). There’s an enormous range of feature and functionality upgrades, which are explained in some detail on the Virtual Earth blog. There’s also a discussion at CNET. At a crude level, what it means is that Live Maps […]
Two years ago, my brother was getting married, and he had asked me to help design his invitations and the maps showing how to get from the church to the restaurant where we were holding the rehearsal dinner. I used to be a professional cartographer, so making a map was not a problem, particularly since […]
How Google Earth Ate Our Town from Time Magazine highlights Nanaimo, a British Columbia town on Vancouver Island, also known as “Google Earth Town” or “the capital of Google Earth.” Nanaimo has been plotting virtually all of their town’s data directly on Google Maps and Google Earth. From real-time firefighter calls on Google Maps to […]
The Google Earth Blog reports Google Maps has added street views for new cities (now formally announced by Google itself here). The new cities that now support “Street View” photography are:
As the Google LatLong Blog explains, Google has added a nice feature to Maps (it would seem something rolls out weekly these days). That feature allows users to get directions or locations of businesses without inputting a destination address. Below are some examples.
The Google LatLong blog announced a neat new feature that lets you sit back and watch the edits made to Google Maps in a live viewer. To view recent edits made to Google Maps, just go here and watch. I made a quick video of the page, and as you can see, it showed three […]
Registered Google users are now permitted to adjust the place markers for businesses on Google Maps and soon will have the ability to more broadly edit local business information. Changes will initially go through a human editorial process to ensure the accuracy and propriety of information as the new capabilities are rolled out. Google told […]
The Google Earth Blog reports that Google Earth has restructured the layers and added a new weather layer to the mapping tool. Weather.com and Naval Research Labs’ Marine Meteorology Division power the weather layer. The weather layer contains sub-layers with clouds, radar, and weather conditions and forecasts. If you want the clouds and radars to […]
Late last month, at its “Searchification” event, Microsoft introduced a wide range of search enhancements and improvements. The company also said there would be additional updates to follow. Those are now rolling out and include feature and content enhancements for maps, local, and mobile services. The biggest news is the introduction of a new voice […]
Google announced expanded Maps coverage of Latin American and Asian countries on its LatLong blog. Recently added countries include: Afghanistan, Aruba, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Bolivia, Cambodia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Mexico, Myanmar (Burma), […]
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has selected Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Platform for its geospatial mapping applications. The combination of diverse capabilities and imagery appears to be what appealed to the agency.
Online maps: we use them everyday for purposes as varied as finding out how to meet our friends at a new restaurant to sending out invitations to our child’s birthday party. Maps are valuable graphical presentations of how to get to a certain place. Most companies that depend on local customers are beginning to recognize […]
Brady Forrest at O’Reilly Radar reports on Google’s GPS-based “crowdsourcing” strategy to get local data on Maps outside the US (specifically in India). While Google has enormous amounts of data for the US and EU, in selected countries there’s much less data to plot on Maps. Accordingly Google is relying on users (e.g., My Maps) […]
Google is bringing mashups behind the enterprise firewall and into the browser. What that means, among other things, is that Google Earth Enterprise users will be able to see data rendered on Google Earth within a browser environment rather than having the Earth client on their individual desktops. Here’s the Google Blog post.
Local search is coming to a neighborhood near you – literally. Google is the latest and highest profile site to introduce what might be called “colloquial” neighborhood level search into Google Maps. What it means is that people can now use popular terms and even geo-slang in some cases to identify businesses and points of […]
Chile asks Google to fix map gaffe from the Associated Press reports that Google has mislabeled Villa O’Higgins, a town in Chile, as being in Argentina. The above image is a screen shot I took just a few minutes ago using Google Earth, for a search on “Villa O’Higgins,” which confirms that the mapping error […]
Microsoft added a range of new features to Live Search Maps, including Firefox support for Virtual Earth 3D. Some of the new capabilities are live right now, and some are going live later today. Below is a list of the new tools and features and their descriptions from the distributed press materials.
Google Operating Systems reports that Google has acquired Endoxon, a company that specializes in internet mapping solutions. Google actually did not acquire the whole company, but rather just half of the business units, including internet, mapping and data processing business units. They were acquired because “Endoxon’s assets and its European network bolster engineering and technical […]