This is a clever and funny video that plays on the privacy concerns with Google's Maps Street View feature. Privacy concerns were raised when Google's cameras captured people and their thongs. There is a point at which Google's efforts to map our cities will have to stop. The tagline of the video is "Two young men take a turn down the wrong street view." (via Valleywag)
Google has announced the launch of its embeddable maps feature that makes it easy to post a map on a blog or website.
Today we're excited to announce a new feature on Google Maps that allows you to add maps to your blog or website just by copying and pasting a snippet of HTML. And once you embed the map, it has all the same functionality of the Google Maps you know and love; it's clickable, draggable, and zoomable.
Adding a map to your website or blog is now as easy as embedding a YouTube video. No programming skills are required, and there's no need to sign up for a Maps API key.
Embedding the code is easy to do. You just look for the "Link to this page" on the top right-hand corner of Google Maps and then cut and paste the code. Here is a map of New York City as an example. The embeddable maps offer many of the the same features found at maps.google.com website.
Google Maps Mania says geo searches are also embeddable. As we mentioned before there are a lot of potential uses of this service such as providing a map on a travel-related entry or posting directions to a concert or conference.
APC reports that Google is going to be launching an embed feature for Google Maps that will make it as easy to embed in your blog as a YouTube video clip.
Google Australia this morning showed a new iteration of Google Maps, launching about a week from now.
First up, if you know how to embed a YouTube video in your blog, you'll be able to embed Google Maps in your website, Google promises.
It'll be as simple as cutting and pasting a bit of HTML code into your website, just like a YouTube video.
The embedded maps have the full functionality of Google Maps -- they provide satellite view, map view or hybrid view, and users can click and drag the maps around.
To embed a Google Map, you pull up the map you want to embed--it can be a location, a business, series of driving directions, or a My Map you've created--and then click "Link to this page" and copy and paste the HTML into your website or blog. The embedded map will be fully interactive--you can drag and click or zoom in on a location, and view it in map, satellite, and hybrid modes,
This sounds like it could be a great feature for blogs. If you are talking about an event such a concert or conference an embeddable map could keep the viewer on your site while they use the map. They would also be useful for current events to pinpoint the location. It would be useful to have a map to show visitors when blogging about breaking news events like the Minnesota bridge collapse or the trapped Utah coal miners story. The maps would also obviously be very useful for travel blogs.
Update 8-15-07: Google Operating System discusses a couple services that already let you embed Google Maps: Map Generator and My Maps Plus.
