MyMaps

Google gives Maps users a history lesson

Remember that feature Google rolled out back in November of last year that let users edit location markers? This morning the company's released a new Maps visualization to let you watch a portion of those user edits in real time. Like some of the Flickr and Twitter mashups that have done the same thing with photos and messages, you can glean a certain level of entertainment off watching people's changes, and as long as you're sitting far enough back from your computer monitor you can avoid the Cloverfield-like nausea when the map quick pans to the next location (seriously).

From my time watching the page this morning, nearly all of the changes remained within the United States with just a few trips to southern England. This could mean that either Google's localizing the data feed, or trying to keep the transcontinental panning to a minimum.

Google Maps continues to be one of Google's fastest changing services within the last year. Just yesterday it finally got list reordering as part of My Maps (previously user-created maps would remain in the order of the spot or landmark at the time it was created), and earlier this month it added live Doppler radar and satellite weather reports as a mapplet.

See it in action an animated GIF after the jump.

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Google Maps gets terrain maps, updated collaboration features

Google Maps has added a new view layer to its repertoire today. It's called terrain view, and as the name suggests, it lets you get a detailed look at natural geographical features, as well as man made ones, like buildings and landmarks. Unlike Google Earth, you can't zoom around and change eye level to see how high something is, but Google has provided some degree of rendering on the surface of the earth to give it a 3D look and feel.

While it lacks the flash and instant usefulness of Street View (Google's latest maps addition), terrain … Read more

Hands-on: Google's International Cleanup Weekend

Greer Park in upscale Palo Alto, Calif., isn't what you would call dirty.

Nor is it sprayed with graffiti, broken down, rusty or disheveled. In fact, nothing on the surface would indicate the need for a concentrated effort by Google employees and friends participating in Google's first International Cleanup Weekend, an endeavor born in part to publicize the MyMaps application and KML, the XML-based markup language used to make Google's interactive Web maps.

Yet here were eight of us, stooping to harvest bottle caps, gum wrappers and cigarette butts from the tanbark and grass at 9:30 … Read more

Google's Earth from above: A 3D look

"Google Maps is changing the way we see the world," journalist Evan Ratliff declares in a June article for Wired magazine. I couldn't agree more. Google's universal mapping project isn't just changing the portals for viewing the world online, it's also changing offline understandings of how the world is best viewed--from Google's services, of course. Google has gained influence fast, by ambitiously developing innovative, interactive mapping software; integrating multiple online services into the majority of desktop and online apps; and familiarizing users with a particular Google-branded aesthetic.

In creating a suite of map apps to encourage users to contribute to Google's greater project and personalize locally-stored versions of a map, Google is not just bringing cartography to the masses, Ratliff points out, but is getting users to help build out its universe. This, of course, makes complete sense. With Google Earth, Google SketchUp, and MyMaps (watch the CNET News.com "how-to" video,) Google's mapping software has surpassed competitors like NASA in digitizing the world. In so doing, Google has captivated the imagination of loyal users who will return to the company's Earth and maps programs to find business listings, explore culturally significant architecture, and plant personal photos and videos.… Read more