That Fiat you could win with Google Earth during the Winter Olympics? It was only for a select group of Europeans, so it’s only fair that the Mazda you can now win with Google Earth is for US residents only.

As opposed to the Fiat sweepstakes, this new game actually requires some geography skills. It looks slick, too. But from the marketing perspective, it’s interesting to note that Google has now managed to recruit a decent group of high-profile brands to run campaigns that require young hip people to download Google Earth — Adidas, Fiat, Discovery Channel and now Mazda. (Not sure what to make of the Maxim stunt.) Mazda even boasts about it in their Press release:

Leveraging the popularity of Google Earth, a free software application run through Earth.Google.com that combines satellite imagery, maps and a powerful search engine, users will be able to use video clues to search all over the globe for a chance to win a brand new Mazda CX-7.

And later:

“This multi-tiered campaign is a great example of how Mazda has gone beyond basic marketing tactics to embrace emerging technologies in communicating to consumers,” said Brian Colianni, senior vice president of sales and marketing, MNAO.

It’s interesting to speculate whether Mazda gets incentives from Google to include Google Earth in a campaign like this — after all, Google is willing to pay for installs of Firefox with the Google toolbar, so why not pay for installs of Google Earth, thus helping to defray the costs of the campaign for Mazda? Or is the cachet that Mazda gets from associating itself with the next-generation browser enough compensation? (No money changed hands in the content deal with the Discovery Channel, for example, as reported by the Washington Post.)

As a Stanley Kubrick fan, this hits a major soft spot: “hwtnv” took Station V from the Space Odyssey 3D Modeling Archive (who knew such a wonderful resource existed!), wrung it through SOLA’s 3D-to-KML converter (a newer version, dubbed G1, is out since Ogle Earth blogged it a few days ago), and published it to Google Earth Community.

It so realistic, it’s almost painful not to have it rotate. (VIa GE Maniacs, which also points to the Celestia Motherload, where you can download all manner of Space Odyssey models for Celestia.)

Mumbai Mirror reviews SketchUp, and concludes:

I quite like the software: It’s free, it’s a tiny download and you can be glorified for your designs online. But it takes time to learn and, as far as ease of use goes, it has a long way to go before catching up to competition.

Wow, the reviewer must be really proficient at AutoCAD and Microstation, then…

• Christian Spanring updates Geoblogger.eu, removing content already present in Planet Geospatial. Writes Christian, “Geoblogger.eu should now be a nice add-on to planet geospatial, for people interested in mainly non-english geoblogs.”
• VlogMap Community notes that Vlogmap.org gets a big fat mention in Wired Magazine: “Google Earth fans have studded the big blue marble with local vlogs. The result: a one-stop global Web-vid spree.” The Vlogmap Google Earth network links show that indeed, the number of vlogs has ballooned over the past 6 months.
• Earth Bridge is a very fancy-looking real-time GPS tracker for Google Earth.
• Via Data Mining, Global-i Application. It’s a wireframe 3D globe inside a web browser, but comes with lots of geopolitical data (though you have to pay to get it all). I really wish those controls were available on Google Earth, or that you could construct a network link based on preferences such as these.
• Following up on a recent post about how Google is aiming to preëmptively “semanticize” new content for the web… Google Blogoscoped points to a call for taxonomy leaders by Google for Google Base, to help set up the right data attributes for content contributed to Google Base.
• French tech blog Innis went to virtual reality conference Laval Virtual 2006, and brought home a video of the most innovative display technologies, including some that would come in handy for navigating 3D globes. No French required to see it.

• An unsuspecting SketchUp Free user accidentally ventures onto the SketchUp Pro forum. All hell breaks loose (in a teacUp).
• The Washington Post covers the freeing of SketchUp, with quotes from ex-@Last founder Brad Schell. (WaPo seems to think the company Google bought was called SketchUp. Snigger.)
• Fabrizio Pivari: Google Earth internet artist: “I think, I’m the first worldwide artist that uses Google Earth for internet installations.” Wrong:-)
• Same Fabrizio Pivari asks in the SketchUp Google Group: “Where can I find a 3D alphabet?” I was wondering that myself. For Windows, Anim8or is suggested as a free tool. For the Mac, there is Cheetah3d at $99, though it may be a bit of an (impressive) overkill. Anyone know of a free Mac alternative?
• The Irish get an early lead with their 3D Warehouse contributions. Here’s Howth harbour, and here is what must be the world’s fastest-constructed SketchUp model, Dublin Spire.

Remember the video of the 3D Google-Earth like application for Java-enabled mobile phone posted a few days ago? Swedish mobile gadget news site mobil confirms it’s of Swedish company Wayfinder‘s mobile app Wayfinder Earth, whose beta is due to be released May 2.

The news site reports that the application will allow you to type in a place name and then zoom in to it, and will also show restaurants, hotels, etc. It also says the free application is part of a strategy by Wayfinder to attract more users, who would then be enticed into buying services directly through the app.

All this puts Wayfinder into something of a competitive position with Google’s recently announced Google Maps Mobile. Google’s product is definitely 2D, as the working online demo shows. Also, it uses the same technique as with Maps, where you zoom in to predefined levels, and then scroll across different map tiles.

Wayfinder Earth is seen using a two-tiered vector-based solution: A Google Earth-like 3D interface for further out, and a 2D interface when zoomed closer in. The video shows smooth zooming at all levels, with the maps as vector data downloaded and rendered on the phone.

Excellent. 3D models, such as this one of the Aqueduct of Fréjus are appearing in 3D Warehouse with links to Wikipedia, and this means that Wikipedia will soon be linking entries to objects, when relevant. A great idea.

What to do, however, when you want to comment on the object itself? For example, the above-mentioned model disappears underground when terrain is turned on, so it requires a fix. But reporting a “bad item” is a rather heavyhanded response, and it’s not easy to get in touch with the author.