• As noted in Ogle Earth’s comments already, place directory geonames.org now boasts an RSS to GeoRSS converter that automatically geocodes place names. Even cooler, for our sake, is the RSS to KML converter, which ouputs the geo-enhanced version directly to Google Earth. I tried it on some of my feeds, and it really works.
• Business 2.0, and hence mainstream media, catches on to Google’s metaverse plans. (Via Serious Games)
• Juice Analytics checks under the hood of Google Earth and discovers an easy way to modify the user interface, so that you can, for example, float component windows. I’ve just tried this for the Mac version, and it works as well. For the Mac, right-click on the Google Earth application (when it is not running), select “Show package contents”, then navigate on over to:

  /Applications/Google Earth.app/Contents/MacOS/kvw/default_lt.kvw

  Open it in a text editor and apply Juice Analytics’ hack.

• BrandToBeDetermined toys with the idea of using SketchUp to provide a third dimension to a pie chart. Very neat.
• GeoWeb 2006 takes place in Vancouver on July 24-28. The program has Google’s KML data engineer Michael Ashbridge presenting a 3-hour session on “Google Earth and KML” on July 24, while Google Earth CTO Michael Jones is keynote speaker on July 28.
• GPS Watch, a Java app for mobile phones, supports KML export. Are there any GPS devices left that don’t?

The link list running down the right-hand column of this blog was getting somewhat unwieldy, so I’ve given it an own page: Introducing the Ogle Earth link list, containing all manner of resources related to Google Earth, SketchUp, and GIS more broadly.

Link

Notes:

• There is a limit of five search terms on a Google Trends chart. “virtual earth” would flatline on the above chart (a blip at launch excepted), as would “mappoint” and “google local”.
• Clearly, MapQuest is maintaining its mindshare.

3D Warehouse content can now be downloaded directly into Arc2Earth, the ArcGIS to KML exporter, where you can use it as a replacement for marker icons. The killer feature is this: Arc2Earth can restyle the content according to the markers’s attributes. Writes the developer, Brian Flood, on his blog:

A2E can use this [attribute] information to “re-style” the model in part or in whole. In this regard, the models become more dynamic since they can be styled to display all different sorts of data. Likewise, the models can be scaled and rotated by fixed or attribute defined values. So style, size, orientation and clearly location are all dynamically applied during the export.

Plenty of examples over on Brian’s blog.

Another blog post that just writes itself. Matt of VlogMap emails:

I just wanted to let you know that I just launched VlogMap 2.0… The launch was pushed up 1 month due to being printed this month’s issue of Wired Magazine. The main reason I’m emailing is to inform you of a new feature…

Not only can vloggers map their video blog sites, but they can now map their individual video posts as well. I’m calling this “geovlogging” and it allows visitors to virtually travel to a location and watch videos from the exact location they were filmed…

For example, lets say I’m headed to Tunisia this summer. I can browse the map to see a community member (Andy Carvin) has mapped a bunch of videos from his trip…

And of course, the data is also available in Google Earth…

That’s great news for vloggers, and also for Google Earth users. We now have a network link for individual vlog “entries”, above, as well as a network link that anchors entire video blogs to the authors’ home bases. The disaggregation of georeferenced content into ever-more precisely positioned components continues apace.

At first blush, it might appear strange that tools for georeferencing photos and videos have gone mainstream a lot faster than tools to help text bloggers (wow, sounds so ancient:-) georefence their posts, but perhaps the reason is that photos and video snippets are clearly of a place, whereas text has a nasty habit of wandering all over the place. Text is often abstract, while photos and videos often aren’t; the “where” attribute is more front-and-center for a photograph or video than for a piece of writing.

• Some highly lickable SketchUp models of hypothetical MIDI controllers, posted to Make:.
• Photo georeferencing tool for Windows RoboGeo makes it up to version 4.0, with an enhanced user interface, automatic support for camera directions (!), and better image stamping. There is a free demo version.
• Google Ocean is a collection of Google Earth files with a maritime theme: Buoy data, sea surface temperatures, weather, bathymetry data, tidal predictions, shipwrecks… There is also a set of high resolution overlays for the French coast line. The pièce de resistance? Submarine cables have negative height numbers in anticipation of Google Earth getting real 3D seafloors (!).
• Astun Technology has come out with a very slick, free, javascript-based batch geocoder. It claims to be able to geocode addresses globally (specializing in the UK), and you can get the output as KML. If you need industrial strength solutions (or integration with your website), you can subscribe to a commercial solution.

Dimitri Stancioff posts to Flickr’s geotagging community:

A short while ago I nabbed the domain name geotaggers.com. I have been developing an application to view Flickr photos in Google Earth (much like the late Geobloggers.com and Yuan’s solution) and I figured that was where I would host the download from and run the service from.

Recently, however, I have started to consider creating a site that is an overall resource for geotaggers. One site that is maintained and updated to provide a resource to anyone interested in geotagging, whether they come from flickr, del.ico.ous, or other community based tagging sites.

So I am asking here what people feel that they need, or would like to see, compiled into one location.

Read his entire request for ideas.