5 Years of Google Maps Mania

Mike Pegg started Google Maps Mania on Wednesday, April 13, 2005. So yesterday was our fifth birthday.

Here's Mike's first ever post to Google Maps Mania,

"If you're like me you were absolutely floored when Google came out with the Google Maps service. Sure, it's just another mapping service.. Until you realize it's full potential. The ability to toggle between regular street/road maps and a satellite view is unreal. I've started to see a lot of buzz around the blogging community about Google Maps so I've decided to help you keep up with the Google Maps related sites, blogs and tools that are cropping up.

Stay tuned."

Who would have thought that five years down the line the buzz around online mapping and Location Based Services would be even greater?


Mike's second post to Google Maps Mania was a short review of Google Sightseeing. Google Sightseeing are also still going strong and celebrated their own five year anniversary last week.


This year the five year anniversaries are going to come thick and fast:

• In February 2005 Google Maps itself launched
• In April 2005 Paul Rademacher's first ever Google Maps hack - showing Craigslist housing ads on Google Maps - was launched
• In April 2005 Google Sightseeing was launched
• In April 2005 Google Maps Mania began
• In July 2005 the Google Maps API was released