All posts by Stefan Geens

Content

GoogleGlobe.com gets a dynamic network link

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GoogleGlobe.com now also has a dynamically updated network link of its placemarks on Google Earth nearest your point of view. (direct link). They call it the Globe Assistant.

In an email, Erwin Nikkels at GoogleGlobe.com adds:

Also a Weblog function is integrated where you can leave your reactions about a spot. The next version of Globe Assistant may also be used to connect 3rd party databases (like real estate etc) to GoogleEarth.

I think Erwin is on to something here, if by that he means a future revenue stream. Most dynamic network links so far include a URL to a web page with the picture/link/wikipedia entry, and on those pages there sometimes are ads (often Google ads, natch). But just as RSS feeds have started carrying posts that in fact are ads, there is nothing that stops KML files from containing sponsored placemarks.

The challenge then becomes getting as wide as possible a distribution of your dynamic network link, so that more people see your sponsored placemarks. You can do this the hard way, by getting people to download your link, or you can try to see if it might not be included as a default layer in the Google Earth application. I wonder, however, if in the latter case, Google might not want something in return for the distribution of your moneymaking placemarks. After all, why should Google give anyone a free lunch? Ah, it’s a brave new world (for advertising).

BTW, I love how all manner of serendipity happens when I’m surfing the Earth with all my network links turned on. The more the merrier, I say.

Interview

Geoplace.com talks to Google Earth’s product manager

Geoplace.com homes in on the business side of Google Earth with John Hanke, general manager for Keyhole at Google.

So Google reserves the right to add ads to Google Maps in the future (as we knew). The question I really would have liked to have asked John Hanke is, Are you planning to monetize Google Earth the same way? Perhaps via contextual ads in the dashboard? Selling of sponsored folders?

Interview

Interview: Google/Keyhole community BBS’s “Seer,” part 1

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Anybody who’s spent any time at all on the official Google/Keyhole community bulletin board has run into site administrator and Google Earth power user “Seer”. With over 2,600 posts under his belt since 2002, he is the go-to person for all things Google Earthly, and so I asked for an interview. Here comes the first installment.

In my first couple of questions, I ask him about how it feels to hit the big time, and what he thinks of the unofficial community sites that are springing up around Google Earth. Highlights:

…It never occurred to me that there would be other sites, though as soon as I saw the first one I realized that there would be many more…

…The user-created data layers started with the Google Earth Community and are expanding in several new directions. Anyone with Placemarks to publish on the Google Earth is someone that we want to know…

Read the whole first installment below the fold.

Continue reading Interview: Google/Keyhole community BBS’s “Seer,” part 1 →

Content

A taxonomy of Google Earth KML files

I’ve found my Google Earth interests getting progressively more ornate, from focusing on zero-dimensional experiences to those in three (I’ll explain). At the same time, this trajectory provides one possible taxonomy for Google Earth KML.

Zero dimensions: Static placemarks. First it was all about zooming in on static spots on the globe. Places from childhood, famous places, odd places… many interesting placemarks can be found on the sightseeing sites in the sidebar of this blog.

One Dimension A: Static paths. Pretty soon I discovered the Tour de France routes, and the ability to follow along them.

One Dimension B: Dynamic placemarks — the dimension in question here being time. The best examples include network links for Flickr images, del.icio.us links and Blogwise blogs.

Two dimensions A: Static overlays: For example, detailed images of Area 51 and maps of Easter Island, filling in the blanks where Google Earth goes vague. Also, global population overlays.

[Two dimensions B: Network links to dynamically updated paths? Haven’t seen any examples of this class of creature. One possible example might be the display of the optimal flight routes across the Atlantic given current Gulf Stream conditions. But that’s a bit esoteric, no?]

Three dimensions A: Network links to dynamically updated overlays. Live updated weather maps! Live traffic maps!

Three dimensions B: Static 3D models.

[Four dimensions: Network links to dynamically updated 3D models that change shape and size over time? Haven’t seen any of these either, but perhaps a model of a building site in progress would qualify. Or else colored translucent columns of different sizes across a landscape might be usable as a nifty 3D charting tool of real-time data in several dimensions at once…]

Process

COM again?

Simon Chapman starts delving into Google Earth’s C++ codebase and comes up with a basic COM interface.

Slightly tangential thought: I wonder if the Mac version will be scriptable? Using Automator/Applescript to take timelapse video of weathermap overlays would be a bit of a trip. Or we could try to scrape geodata from the frontmost web page in Safari and have Google Earth fly there while we surf. In other words, there is room for a Google Earth equivalent of the Google Maps API.

Process

yubnub + Google Earth mashup

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My very first mashup!

yubnub is extremely clever. It’s a folksonomy of command-line commands for the web, quite simply, and it leaves little doubt that the web-as-operating-system meme is in full bloom.

To get an idea of how it works, just go there and try it. Type “g stockholm” and you will see the Google search results for “Stockholm”. Type “flk googleearth” and you’re taken to a Flickr search for “googleearth”. The “g” and the “flk” are user submitted; both “gmaps” and “gm” work for Google Maps, for example. (What’s more, you can now combine 2 or more successive such commands into pipes, just like with real Unix.)

But there wasn’t a yubnub command for Google Earth yet, as far as I could tell. So I remembered this morning’s little discovery, by Taylor Monacelli, that Google Earth KML files need not have coordinates — a valid address is just fine. (Google Maps works the same way: supply just and address, and it will return a URL with both address and coordinates.)

What needed to be done, then was quite simple: Write some PHP that procures a (valid, obvs.) address, wraps it inside valid KML and then saves it to the desktop, where Google Earth is waiting to launch it.

Here it is.

All I did then was go to yubnub and make my own new command, gearth, which calls my PHP form.

So now, you can “gearth 109 St. Marks Place, New York, NY, 10009”, my old haunt, and fly directly to the East village, where you’ll end up hovering above Tompkins Square Park, not unlike the aliens in Independence Day.