Big News: Google Maps Street View

(Updated May 30th/07: YouTube demo clip, more details..)

Google has just launched an absolutely mind-blowing new feature for Google Maps called "Street View", and it's available for the following US cities: San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami. Street View gives you the ability to view 360° panoramas of street-level imagery on Google Maps:



For a cool demo of how this works, take a look at this fun YouTube clip:

..This page features the same YouTube clip with more information and links to read about.

This new Maps viewing experience is much better test driven than being read about so head over to Google Maps (or follow the direct city links above), center the map on the US and click "Street View" up at the top. Choose a city with a camera marker and zoom in to have a play!

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Magnificent Moscow Metro Mashup (Google Maps)

A Magnificent Moscow Metro Mashup: - (Update - these sites no longer work so dead links have been removed)

Boris Vikhanskiy of Russia dropped me a line to inform me of a new bilingual (Russian and English) transit mashup he has created for the Moscow subway system. As far as transit mashups go, this is one of the better I've seen in all ways. For the network itself the mashup has routes, station schemas and exits (more on that in a moment) and public transportation by each station. The UI for the map itself features a tool to measure distance, a way to pass a created path as a link and print/email options. This, among many other features.

My favorite part of this map is that it keeps surprising you as you get further and further down in zoom levels. At first you see the color coded spaghetti polylines going every which way to illustrate the various routes. Zoom down a bit more and stations appear. Even further and text labels appear.. then when you reach zoom levels 1 and 2 the actual schema for the station with each of the stairways and exits is displayed! Take a look:

Be sure to take a look at the bottom of the map to find detailed instructions on how to use every part of Boris Vikhanskiy most awesome Google Maps transit mashup for the city of Moscow, Russia!

More Russian Google Maps Mashups:

• Wikimapia - This world famous Google Maps mashup was created by two developers in Moscow
• domnakarte.ru - A new Moscow housing mashup
• Virtual Moscow - A great tourism mashup for Moscow showing highlights and virtual tours

Facebook + Google Maps = Friend Mashups

+  (update - these sites no longer exist so dead links have been removed.

Can't get enough of Facebook? Try something new on Facebook by using these Facebook Google Maps mashups to make your own buddy mapping mashup by plotting your Facebook friends on a map! It takes a few seconds to do and the resulting map shows geographically how near and far your friends really are!

Facebook Friend Mapper - This one is pretty straightforward. Follow the link and login to Facebook. Once you've logged in, friends automatically become mapped for you across a Google Map. The map locations pull from the hometown that your friend has set.

Map Your Buddies - This mashup combines Facebook, Google Maps and Amazon to allow you to map your friends to a Google Map. The Amazon ingredient in this mashup checks out your friend's music interests and suggests a CD from Amazon. Follow the steps at the bottom of the page to get going. This app might expose how few of your friends have music interests set but it does map friends pretty well, especially grouping many in one location.

Facebook UK Friend Plotter - This is a UK specific Facebook friend mapping app that will map where your friends are in the UK. This is great for the UK Facebook crowd, but since I personally hail from Southwestern Ontario, Canada I did expose one flaw in this app. My area of Southern Ontario was settled by the British so all of my Facebook friends are displayed in the locations where these Ontario place names originate in the UK (places like London, Windsor, Blenheim (woo hoo!), Chatham etc..)

See more Facebook mashups on ProgrammableWeb..


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