1. Incredibly, this Mac application, MapMemo, hadn’t previously gained my attention. It does something very cleverly: it lets you drag files to locations on maps or charts to create aliases/shortcuts there, so that you can arrange and categorize your files spatially. A brilliant idea, with hindsight, and something to wish for in Google Earth, perhaps, as it turns the application into something more than a browser — it becomes a desktop companion. I especially like how it works seamlessly — no mussing with KML to get it to do its thing. (Via VerySpatial)

2. This is older, from June 29, 2005, but it’s a podcast of Google Earth General Manager John Hanke’s speech at the Where 2.0 conference. (Via Second Life Future Salon, which wonders when Google Earth will get avatars. Perhaps as an optional layer, so I don’t have to deal with them? :-)

3. Is Google Earth too good to be true? All Points Blog points to a report of a talk earlier this week by David Girouard, general manager at Google’s enterprise division, where it looks like he’s trying to say Google Earth is taking up a lot of computing power (surprise surprise), and that the company “has concerns about the future in all these respects.” All I’m going to say is that I’m not looking this particular gift stallion in the mouth. And monetize it already!