Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

February 26, 2007

On Feb. 22, Google added KML search to its Google Earth site. Now you can use the search bar to see a listing of KML files found via Internet search that are applicable to your current Google Earth view.

As an example, if you are viewing Seattle, WA and you type in statues you will see applicable KML files.

This is the first inclusion of Google's Internet crawl in Google Earth. It has had Local search for a while, but that comes from a seperate index. This may be just the beginning of different search types to be included in Google Earth.

We don't see any other reason why Google wouldn't continue to add geo-coded content as layers.

In the future we can expect blogs, Orkut networks, geo-referenced websites and books.

Google has already added a geo-oriented view to book search. What would the goal be of adding more search types?

This would continue to improve the product since search is powerful.

Secondly, search can lead to ads which may lead to monetization of Google Earth and this is probably the main reason why Google is doing all of this.

The improved KML-sharing feature is actually the second time that Google has implemented it. The first was the ability to view other people's KML files in Google Maps.

Though hosted KML is a very capable app for sharing data it is still incredibly geeky to try to build a community around a simple file format.

I can't imagine normal users being able to really use this. A much simpler method of sharing data would be hosted maps, very similar to what Platial, Frappr and Live do.

I only have to assume that a similar product is being worked on internally at Google.

The search giant will have to strike a balance as it will not want to be seen as competing too much with all of its partners who can switch providers very easily by using Open Source JavaScript libraries like OpenLayers or Mapstraction.

Add to del.icio.us     Digg this

Source: O'Reilly Radar