Gorgeous-looking vlogmap.org, a Google Maps-based worldwide repository of vloggers (video bloggers) has gone and exposed its database to Google Earth via a dynamic network link, to great effect.

This one really is impressive. Mashups like these are what turn Google Earth into a constant source of mouth-agape wonder for me. Social mapping software simply rules.

(Instructions on how to manually set up the network link are posted here, but I’ve gone ahead and followed them and saved the result as a KMZ network link for automatic download and installation right here [KMZ].)

But before you do any of this, run to Anders Clerwall’s The Random Show in Stockholm, where he’s made a Quicktime movie of the Google Earth + vlogmap mashup in action. It’s pure bliss.

Brief bigger picture thoughts: I find services like Blogwise and vlogger provide a highly intuitive means of discovering interesting and relevant content. That’s because we tend to blog locally, even if we think globally. It works for blogs, it works for vlogs, so why not podcasts? Is the iTunes interface really the best way to organize podcasters, especially those lumped into the “International” category? Wouldn’t folders in Google Earth containing dynamic network links corresponding to the top-level categories of podcasts be a better direction to start in? Wouldn’t it be lovely if by iTunes 6 we had an Earth button somewhere on the interface that mapped your current selection of podcasts onto Google Earth for browsing?