Google Earth – Web 2.0 Application

Google earth, I think just about everyone should have heard of this application?! If not, go download it…

http://earth.google.com/

GE used to be an application you were unable to do anything with apart from check out various places around the globe, some places in fantastic hi-res detail, but it has changed recently with integration with wikipedia and a photo storage website (Panoramio) to allow users to contribute to the system.

http://www.panoramio.com/

By creating an account with Panoramio, you can upload your photos to the website and by using Google Maps you can select where this image was taken. These images (after a length of time) will be uploaded to the Google Earth application, until then you can get Panoramio to link your pictures to Google Earth so you can view them on a temporary basis. I’ve done this and uploaded a couple of pictures and with screen shots shown that it works well. Over the course of time Google Earth should become well populated with pictures from all over the world.

This screen shot is from inside the Google Earth application itself.

I have some thoughts about this application (and the web based Google Maps) and the future and wonder how far it could actually go. Could we one day see Sat Nav in vehicles using Google Earth that is always kept up to date with the ability to see information about that area from wikipedia with images?

Other web 2.0 applications that I have been looking at…

www.dpchallenge.com
Upload images for photo competitions, other users cast their votes and leave general feedback about an image, a winner for each competition is decided by the total votes.

http://live.xbox.com/
The Xbox website is linked directly to the Xbox Live online gaming system, if you have a Live account you can log into the website and compare your gamerscore to other Xbox gamers, see if your friends are currently playing online, or contribute to the forum. This system works very well, but with plenty of M$ money behind it it should do!