Mapping the "No Phone Zone" movement

Mobile communication has revolutionized the way we live, but unfortunately, irresponsible use has also made the roads more dangerous. In 2008, nearly 6000 people lost their lives in the US and more than half a million people were injured in police-reported crashes during which some form of driver distraction was reported — and according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, cell phone use was a major contributor to that.

To help combat distracted driving, Google Maps has worked with The Oprah Winfrey Show to power the mapping for Oprah’s No Phone Zone initiative. The simple pledge form gives you three choices for more responsible driving: no texting, no texting plus handsfree calling only, and no phone use at all while driving.

The first of two maps we’ve made shows where across the US and Canada people have electronically signed the No Phone Zone pledge. It’s nearly real-time, so as you watch the maps you can see the latest name, city, and state/province to join the hundreds of thousands of commitments. This is a nice use of our Google Maps API to allow folks from around the country to easily share their voices on a map in near real-time. Check it out!

The second map helps you educate yourself about state policymaking. Click on a state to restrictions on texting, handsfree, and handheld phone use, and then click through for more details from the Governors Highway Safety Association or to contact a state’s governor directly.

You can see these maps on Oprah.com, or click on “The Map” in the No Phone Zone Widget below. Embed it in your iGoogle page, on a blog, or pretty much anywhere else you communicate by using the “Share” button at bottom-left in the widget below. To make the map work in both the widget and on their website, the developers made use of both the Flash and JavaScript versions of our Google Maps API.

I’ve already signed the pledge but I plan on keeping an eye on the map to watch as more submissions come and see how others make use of it. To learn more about what our mobile team is doing to support safe driving practices, visit our Official Mobile Blog.

Posted by Jesse Friedman, Product Marketing Manager

Up close and personal

[Cross-posted from the SketchUp Blog]

We’re happy to announce that Nashville, Indianapolis, Charlotte, and Dallas are the newest additions to the family of Google Earth cities with high-quality 3D imagery. Exploring some of America’s most well-known cities from the comfort of your own computer just got even easier, and it also got more fun!

Whether exploring Nashville’s music venues along 2nd and Broadway, Indy’s Monument Circle in the heart of downtown, Charlotte’s diverse and numerous museums, or Dallas’s architecturally rich historic districts, the updated high quality 3D imagery will make you feel like you’re really there.

Give it a go in Google Earth or watch the video below for an up close tour!

Posted by Catherine Moats, 3D Modeling Specialist

Imagery for response to Haiti earthquake and Yazoo tornado

To help support ongoing relief efforts in Haiti, we’ve been working with our satellite partner GeoEye to capture updated imagery of Port-au-Prince. As the rainy season approaches, it’s important to have current imagery in order to help aid workers identify and monitor the numerous refugee camps that have sprung up.

You can access the new Haiti satellite imagery by using the Historic Imagery feature in Google Earth. Simply open Google Earth and click on the clock icon in the top toolbar.


The historical imagery time slider will appear just beneath the toolbar. The tick marks on the slider represent images in our database that are available for your current view.

Drag the slider with your mouse to flip between images from different dates. In the below example, you can learn about how a refugee camp has changed in the months since the earthquake.

We’ll continue adding new imagery to the database as it becomes available. We also now have new imagery of the Yazoo City, Mississippi area, where a devastating F4 tornado tore through the town over the weekend. We are making the imagery available as a Google Earth overlay, which we hope can be helpful for responders and those affected by this tragic event.

While we're not able to publish imagery after every disaster around the world, we appreciate the work of our partners and providers to help make this imagery available whenever possible.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior GIS Strategist

Tags: Now in 11 cities

Last week we announced that our new ads offering, Tags, would be rolling out to additional cities. Now business owners in San Jose, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, San Francisco and Mountain View can sign up for Tags from their Google Places accounts.

You’ll notice that we’ve added Mountain View, CA to the list of cities participating in the trial. Because we are still tweaking the product a bit, we thought we’d make it available in our hometown so we can get quick feedback as we work on new features.

For those who are not yet familiar with Tags, for a $25/month flat fee businesses can opt to add a yellow tag to their Google Places listing that highlights a particular aspect of their business. The tag options today include coupons, photos, videos, menu, reservation, website, and driving directions. In a couple of weeks we will launch a new tag type: “post to your Place Page,” a freeform text field in which a business owner can highlight a custom message announcing a sale or an upcoming event.

Posted by Shalini Agarwal, Product Manager

April showers bring... new imagery

The Google Earth and Maps Imagery team has just finished finished pushing out large amount of updated imagery. In total, more than 35 countries are getting updates in one form or another. Some of my favorite highlights include:

Las Vegas, NV

"The Boneyard" in Tucson, AZ

The World Expo in Shanghai

For a complete picture of where we updated imagery, check out the Google Earth plug-in below (updated areas highlighted in red). Alternatively, you can download this KML for viewing in Google Earth, or you view the updates in Google Maps.

Updates are noted with a red frame

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

This is the second post in our Small Business series about entrepreneurship and the various Google tools you can use to establish and improve your business presence on the Internet. Here, you’ll learn how Google Places (formerly called the Local Business Center) can help you attract and be discovered by customers in your area for free. -Ed.

As a local business owner, one of the things that sets you apart is your ability to make personal connections with your customers because of your passion for what you do. Letting people know who you are and what your business is about is a vital part of finding customers, building lasting relationships with them and helping your business succeed. Google Placeshelps business owners like you to manage your online presence and supplement your Place Page with all the information that helps people decide to visit you — from basics like hours of operation and address to helpful extras like videos, coupons and special announcements.

To give you a firsthand account of how Google Places can help a small business grow and succeed, I’ve invited Danya Wright to share her experience:

I first began riding horses at age six. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to spend my life working with horses and sharing my passion with others. I had jobs working for several barns and riding programs around Arizona, but always dreamed of having a school of my own.

Two years ago, I finally realized my dream and opened Specialized Training and Riding School — S.T.A.R.S. of Horsemanship. At S.T.A.R.S., we offer lessons to riders of all ages and skill levels, provide therapeutic horse training services for those with disabilities, and train Special Olympics riders. Our property is a 10-acre scenic environment for our students and horses. But because we’re located in a rural area ofGilbert, AZ, this also presents a big challenge: I don’t have the advantage of “window shoppers” or drive-by traffic. Without a storefront, those who do pass by may not realize that my stable is open to customers. Whenever I want to find a local business, Google Maps is my resource, so I wanted to make sure my business appears there too.

I did a little research and quickly found Google Places (which was known as Local Business Center when I first signed up). Within a few minutes, I was able to update theS.T.A.R.S. Place Page to add key details about my business, like exact location and contact information. And I could mention the special services we offer like group classes, private lessons, birthday parties, Scouting events, parent-child sessions and so on. Now when a company’s looking specifically for a team-building venue, they can find my business easily.



Since avid equestrians can be quite particular about facility details, I wanted to make sure that my Place Page included all of the specialized information that’s relevant to my target clients. Now when you search on Google, you can be taken to our Place Page to see photos that offer preview of our stables and even meet Salty, one of the horses. You can also find a coupon to help provide a little extra incentive to come try out our lessons if you’re new to horseback riding.

Since I started using Google Places six months ago, my business has grown tenfold from what it was before — I’ve gone from averaging around 10 to 15 students to now serving more than 100. To be honest, I had just figured that new customers would trickle in over time, but it’s boomed far beyond my expectations. And now I can spend more time with horses and riders, and less at the computer!

Posted by Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management, Local Search

Keeping Canada's map current

En Français

The map of Canada is constantly changing - new roads are being built, highways are being renamed, and bike trails are opening. To keep up with all these changes, we've started using new map data in Canada. This new base map is built from a wide range of sources, just as we recently announced for the US in October. In Canada, we've made use of data from organizations such as the National Hydrography Network and Canadian Council on Geomatics. Once again things like satellite imagery and Street View were also helpful to make a rich, thorough base map.

You may notice some changes like seeing a full map of your former campus, but overall the look and feel of Google Maps will be pretty similar to what you're used to. One of the biggest changes is that now you can give us direct feedback about our map of Canada - let's say a new park has just opened in your neighborhood. You'll notice a link that says "Report a Problem" in the lower right corner of Google Maps when you're looking at Canada, which will let you send your updates and feedback directly to us. We'll review it as soon as possible and keep you posted on the status of your report. We want our map to be as up-to-date as possible and reflect what's important to you, and we think these changes will help us with that goal.

--

En Français

La carte du Canada est en constante évolution : de nouvelles routes sont construites, des autoroutes sont rebaptisées et de nouvelles pistes cyclables sont aménagées. Afin de tenir compte de ces changements, nous avons commencé à utiliser de nouvelles données cartographiques pour le Canada. Cette nouvelle carte a été assemblée à partir d’un large éventail de sources, comme celles utilisées dans le cas des États-Unis (annonce effectuée en octobre). Au Canada, nous avons recueilli des données auprès d’organisations comme le Réseau hydro national et le Conseil canadien de géomatique. Des concepts comme l’imagerie par satellite et Street View nous ont également été utiles pour concevoir une carte de base riche et complète.

Vous remarquerez certains changements, comme la possibilité de consulter une carte précise de votre alma mater, mais l’aspect visuel et la navigation de Google Maps demeureront assez semblables à ce à quoi vous êtes habitué. L’un des plus importants changements est la possibilité de nous faire parvenir directement votre rétroaction au sujet de notre carte du Canada. Par exemple, si un nouveau parc a été aménagé dans votre quartier, vous pouvez alors cliquer sur le lien «Signaler un problème», au coin inférieur droit de la carte, afin de nous transmettre directement vos mises à jour et vos commentaires. Nous examinerons votre rétroaction dans les plus brefs délais et nous vous tiendrons au courant du progrès de votre demande. Nous désirons mettre au point une carte la plus actuelle possible qui répond à vos besoins, et nous croyons que ces changements nous aideront à atteindre cet objectif.

Posted by Waleed Kadous, Software Engineer

Earth view comes to Google Maps

Five years ago, shortly after Google’s acquisition of Keyhole, we introduced the first integration of Keyhole technology into Google Maps -- Satellite view. Suddenly, you could see what places actually looked like from the air, and easily switch between this view and the map view. Mapping has never been the same. A few months later, the desktop Google Earth application was released, and now we have over 600 million downloads. Today we are proud to announce the next major step in the marriage between Google Earth and Google Maps -- Earth view.


Those of you who aren’t as familiar with Google Earth might be wondering how Earth view differs from the satellite view that’s currently available in Maps. First of all, Earth view offers a true three-dimensional perspective, which lets you experience mountains in full detail, 3D buildings, and first-person dives beneath the ocean. The motion is fluid, and you can see the world from any viewpoint. Because Earth view is built right into Maps, you can switch back to cartographic view simply by clicking on the “Map” button. The view will even adjust automatically to a top-down, north-heading perspective as you transition. In essence, you now have all the best mapping tools at your fingertips, all in one place.

New to 3D? We’ve collected some cool places around the world for you to explore with a single click. Ever been to the Taj Mahal? How about the Sydney Opera house, or South Africa’s Table Mountain? You can even dive under the ocean and check out the wreckage of the Titanic. Just click one of the icons in the left panel and you’ll be flown from space down to your chosen location, which you can explore further by clicking and dragging the map or by using the navigation controls in the top of the view. We have 36 places set aside for you to explore, and you can cycle through them by clicking the "More places" link. We've also included a short video introduction to Earth view.



Earth view uses the same technology that powers the Google Earth desktop application. It allows you to view the same high-resolution imagery, terrain, and 3D cityscapes, all from right within your browser. We built the new Earth view on the Google Earth API and browser plugin, which make it easy for web developers to include Google Earth in their own websites. If you’ve already installed Google Earth, you can start using Earth view right away. Otherwise, with one click you can download and install the browser plugin and you’ll be ready to start exploring in 3D. The Earth plugin is currently supported on most Windows and Mac web browsers.

Get started today by going to maps.google.com/earthview, and explore your world in 3D.


Posted by Peter Birch, Product Manager

Browse local businesses in Street View

It probably comes as no surprise that I spend a lot of time using Street View - it’s my job, after all. But sometimes I get so immersed in my exploration that I take all sorts of detours and side trips and find myself in completely unfamiliar areas that I want to learn more about. I have a feeling many of you are also interested in having a better way to find out more about what you’re seeing in Street View, so I’ve been working with my teammates to help improve the discoverability of content in Street View.

Our new release of local businesses annotations in Street View is the first step down this path. Browse around in your neighborhood for nearby restaurants and shops, or use it to see what else is nearby your dinner spot (you can usually catch me looking around for tasty dessert options). When you’re touring in Street View and see a business that piques your itnerest, now you can find a clickable icon that will take you to the business listing where you can find out the name, hours, read reviews, and more.


For now, browsing a location in Street View will show the top listings for that immediate area. We will be extending this coverage soon to include more businesses and also transit locations.

Don’t forget, if you see a business annotation which is not quite aligned with its location in Street View, you can easily move the marker and place it in its correct location.

The weather in San Francisco is supposed to be great tonight, so I think I’m going to start searching for a dessert spot with nice outdoor seating.

Posted by Stéphane Lafon, Software Engineer, Street View

Who Took 10 When? Census participation rates over time

If you’re a geo-data dork like me, you’ve probably been following the Google Maps and Google Earth displays of near-real-time mail participation rates for US Census 2010 across states, counties, places, and tracts, which we announced last month with the Census Bureau.

Now that the mail-in deadline has passed, we’ve wrapped up the daily participation rate data through April 19 in a Google Earth layer, so you can see how response rates progressed over time. It’s a great example of using time stamps in a layer. Here’s a preview of what you’ll see in the layer:

To explore for yourself, check it out in your browser, or download the KML to open in Google Earth -- zoom in a bit to see the county level, and please be a bit patient as it might take a second or two to load each day’s worth of data. If you’d like to explore the most recent data in more detail, including place and tract level data, you’ll find that in our original layer.

Now that the big mail push is over, I’ll have to sit patiently and bide my time as census takers visit households that didn’t respond, and number-crunchers at the Census Bureau compile data. 2011’s going to be fascinating for geo visualization...we can’t wait to see all the great maps that folks make with the new data!

Posted by Jesse Friedman, Product Marketing Manager

Learn more about Google Places, all in one place

With a new name comes a fresh support experience. The Google Places team wants to make sure that, as a business owner, your experience with Google Places is a good one, so we’ve taken some steps to expand and refine our support offerings. Here’s an overview of the improvements we’ve made and our newest offerings:

Google Places Help Center: Here you can learn more about managing your business listing on Google, new features and how to report problems. This includes a revamped user guide, support channels, and more.

We’ve also made the new Help Center more interactive by adding a guided tour of the Place Page. Place Pages connect you to the best information about almost every place type of in the world. The Place Page overview is a fun and easy way to learn about all the different parts of the page and if you’re a business owner, you can find out how you can add content to your business’ Place Page.

Feedback for Google Places: Post your burning questions and awesome ideas to our new Google Moderator page. After you post, take a look at what other people are posting, and vote up the ideas you like the most. We'll keep the page open until May 21, 2010, and then our team will review the top questions and record video responses that we’ll post in our Help Center.

Google Places Help Forum: Discuss with other users how to improve your listing, newly announced features, or issues you’re encountering. We have dedicated volunteers known as “Top Contributors” who can help answer your questions and discuss your ideas. Google Employees will also be monitoring the forum to facilitate discussions in this forum and provide assistance when needed.

Google Places Webinars: Sign up for our webinars to learn about a variety of topics ranging from “Adding a Listing” up to “Enhancing a Listing”. We’re excited about providing a learning environment that allows us to interact more closely with you, the business owner who all these tools are made for! If you can’t attend the webinars, don’t worry - we’ll post the videos on our YouTube Channel at youtube.com/googleplaces.

You’ll find all these resources at google.com/support/places/.

Posted by Brianna Brekke, Senior Strategist, Google Places

What’s that barcode in your Google Places account?

If you manage a Google Places account for your business in the U.S., you’ll now find a two-dimensional barcode - known as a QR code - on the right side of your business’ dashboard page. If you have just one business listing, this is the page you’re automatically taken to when you log in. If you have multiple listings, click “View report” to get to this page.

Your QR code is unique to your business, and it allows people with certain mobile Android-powered devices and iPhones to scan it and be taken directly to the mobile version of your Place Page. Once on the mobile Place Page, users can find any discounts that you may be offering, post Buzz about your place, instantly call your business, or get other basic information about your business. Currently, several apps on Android-powered devices and iPhones are fully supported; apps on other devices will take you directly to google.com when you scan the code. Here are some ideas for how you can use your unique QR code as a free marketing tool:

• Add it to the back of business cards: Lots of you are already giving away business cards to your customers. Adding a QR code lets you add a lot more information, virtually, with your Place Page, and allows you to change information like discounts & real-time updates about your business without changing the card itself.

• Add it to marketing materials: If you’re running an ad, putting out a pamphlet, or handing out flyers, add a QR code to the corner. We’re using QR codes in a series of new testimonials about Google Places, for example. (Make sure to keep some white space around the QR code to allow for proper scanning).

• Put it in your window: If you’ve got a poster, a menu, or anything else in your window, a QR code lets customers remember you by scanning the code and saving your business as a personal favorite. We’ve got a sample poster with your unique code already on it, which is ready to print from your dashboard page.

To download your QR code, right click to save the image from the right side of your dashboard page.

Posted by Matt Reid, Google Places Engineer

The importance of geolocation services

[Editor's note, 5/14/10 -- This post contains incorrect information about our Wi-Fi data collection. We have posted a clarification and update about our process on the Official Google Blog.]

Where? It might be one small word but the answer to that question can really prove decisive. ‘Quick! The volcano has erupted again and my flight’s cancelled, where is the nearest train station?’ or ‘Where’s the best place to get a decent coffee round here?’ I’m always happy to help, but nowadays these questions can often be answered by firing up your smartphone. The key to knowing where you should go is knowing where you are starting -- my recommendation for the best local cafe depends on whether you ask me when I’m at my office or across town near my house.

So it’s no surprise that geolocation services are becoming more popular with people than ever before, and that many companies are adding locations functions to respond to this demand and improve the services they offer their users. For example, Twitter allows users to geotag their tweets. Everyday, millions of twitter.com users on a desktop computer or mobile phone choose to do this. Knowing that someone is posting from Bangkok as opposed to Manchester gives followers an important perspective when they read a tweet about ‘red shirts all over the city.’ On smartphones like iPhone, Palm, and Android devices, services such as Google Maps for mobile, Yelp, and Urbanspoon use location to provide relevant local search results, while apps like Foursquare and Google Latitude let you find your friends on a Friday night.

But how does this work? How do smartphones actually know where you are? Lots of people talk about GPS (the satellite-based global positioning system) but a lesser known fact is that GPS can be slow: it can take tens of seconds and sometimes much longer to “fix” your location depending on the specific hardware and your physical location. Consequently, companies have worked out other solutions. These are generally based around the idea of “listening” for nearby cell towers or Wi-Fi hotspots and using this data to quickly approximate a rough position. In fact the very first iPhone didn’t even have a GPS - it relied solely on this kind of triangulation for location information. By treating Wi-Fi access points or cell towers as “beacons,” smartphones are able to fix their general location quickly in a power-efficient way, even while they may be working on a more precise GPS-based location. This can be done without any intrusion into the privacy of a Wi-Fi network. We only use information that is publicly broadcast (for example, that list of Wi-Fi hotspots you see in the anytime you open the “join network” option on your PC). It doesn’t involve accessing the network to send or receive data. [**See 5/14/10 note above]

However, a database of known network locations is required for both cellular and Wi-Fi triangulation. Companies like Skyhook Wireless compile such databases which are used by many in the industry. Intel has promoted the use of Wi-Fi for “location aware computing” through projects such as its Location Technologies SDK. Google has contributed by creating its “My Location” API, which relies on a database of locations collected by Google Maps for mobile as well as by our Street View cars, which catalog the location of Wi-Fi access points (the public “beacon” part described above) at the same time as they are collecting Street View imagery and 3D laser scans of buildings. Google has also worked to help even notebooks and tablets find out their location in Chrome and Firefox through the W3C Geolocation API.

Location is clearly going to be a big part of the web going forward. It helps bring the power of the Internet to improve the real, everyday things we need to do. With location-enhanced searches on smart phones, mobile PCs and tablets, we can just do them faster and smarter.

Posted by Raphael Leiteritz, Product Manager

Hope for the Ocean on Earth Day

Today marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, which provides us an occasion to highlight that part which covers 70% of the planet -- the Ocean. We’re releasing a second Hope Spots tour in the Ocean Showcase which features 5 more special places, compiled by the Mission Blue Foundation, which Dr. Sylvia Earle is targeting for protection as part of her 2009 TED wish.

The Hope Spots tour begins in the Gulf of Mexico deep reefs and the Flower Garden Banks. From there, you’ll find a grinning lemon shark in the Bahamas. Next, a video from National Geographic narrated by Dr. Earle, introducing the Patagonian Shelf hope spot. As you venture to the Coral Sea hope spot, you’ll meet a brightly colored, and in this case very talkative, fish known as a wrasse. The tour concludes in the Micronesian islands with a photo of explorers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard in the Trieste bathyscaphe above the Marianas Trench, the deepest place on earth.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Captain Walsh’s plunge in the Trieste down nearly seven miles to the ocean's deepest point. For that remarkable achievement, he received National Geographic Society's Hubbard Medal, the society’s highest honor, as well as U.S. Department of the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award. Both were presented in ceremonies last week in Washington, DC. No one has ventured to "Challenger Deep" since.

There are many ways to make the ocean a part of your Earth Day: take a virtual dive with Ocean in Google Earth, read more on Mission Blue's Act page, take a look at Disneynature’s new Oceans film, or visit the Save my Oceans action site.

This photo was taken last week at the Navy Yard in Washington, DC with the Trieste in the background. Pictured from left are Dr. Don Walsh, who made the Trieste descent, Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch, who made the first-ever descent to the bottom of the North Pole, and Dr. Sylvia Earle.

Posted by Pete Giencke, Ocean in Google Earth engineer

Children of the Amazon airs on PBS on Earth Day

In 2008, Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol joined the Google Earth Outreach team to train the Surui people of the Brazilian rainforest on Google tools to help preserve their way of life. One year later, in 2009, another team went back to the Amazon to teach the indigenous people how to use GPS-enabled mobile phones and mobile data collection tools, including Open Data Kit on the Android platform, to show the world where and when illegal logging is taking place within their protected territory. Trading Bows and Arrows for Laptops -- One Year Later, documents the story.

Today, on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day 2010, Denise’s film, Children of the Amazon, will air on over 100 PBS stations nationwide, as well as on Link TV. Check your local listings for your PBS affiliate’s local screening.

Learn more about the film, view a trailer, watch a video about deforestation in Rondonia using Google Earth’s historical imagery and explore maps inspired by the film at www.childrenoftheamazon.com.

Posted by Tanya Keen, Google Earth Outreach

The Google Maps search box just got smarter

The Suggest feature for Google Maps helps you find what you want faster and more accurately by showing search suggestions for the most relevant places, businesses and points of interest as you type. We experimentally launched suggest for Google Maps in Germany, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan a while ago. Since then, we’ve been working hard to improve the quality and coverage.

So from today we’re making the feature available on 10 more domains and in 8 additional languages, including English and on maps.google.com for the first time.

As a team based in our Zürich office, we understand the importance of getting information that is locally relevant. We've built this knowledge into Suggest for Google Maps so that you get the most useful suggestions depending on where you're zoomed into on the map. For example, if you search for "Mandela" in San Francisco, you'll see items such as Mandela High School and businesses in nearby Oakland.

But more than 8,000 kilometers away in London, you'll see a completely different set of suggestions, which are more relevant for users searching in that location:

The search suggestions in Google Maps also include additional information, such as the address of the business or the district that a place is in. This extra information helps you find and select the exact business or location you're seeking. If you’re signed into your Google account and have web history enabled, you can also see your personalized suggestions, which based on your own past searches.

As of today, you can get suggestions if you're using Google Maps in China, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, United States, United Kingdom, and we're looking to bringing this functionality to all our users around the world soon.

Posted by Steffen Meschkat, Engineer and Peter Lidwell, Product Manager

See what’s in store

Just as you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't always judge a business by its exterior appearance. Yesterday we introduced Google Places and mentioned that we’re now starting a pilot project in select cities worldwide to take photographs of business interiors.

When customers are searching for the right local business, the setting, facilities, ambiance, merchandise, layout, or decor can be important factors in choosing where to go. If you want to find the perfect romantic restaurant for your anniversary dinner, you’ll want to find a place that has the right atmosphere. Or if you need to find a new gym, you’ll probably want to see what sort of equipment and amenities they offer. Place Pages currently feature images from business owners and third-party sources, but we wanted to supplement those with additional photos taken by Google photographers to provide consumers with more ways to get a sense of what awaits them when they step through the door of a business.

The photographs are shot by Google photographers who work directly with the business owner to arrange a time to do the photo shoot. Along with taking pictures of layout, facilities, and merchandise, we’ll also photograph displays on the storefront, like hours, rating decals, accessibility information, credit cards accepted, and posted menus -- and all of this will be done at no cost to the business owner. These photos will also appear alongside the others on a business’ Place Page, and can help customers (and potential customers) get a better sense of what a business has to offer and what sets it apart from others. Here are some samples from our early tests:

Google is currently running a trial of this business photos project in approximately 30 cities across the US, Australia, and Japan. If you’d like your business to be considered for a visit from Google’s photographers, you can learn more and express your interest at http://maps.google.com/businessphotos. Right now we’re focusing on businesses like restaurants, cafes, hotels, spas, salons, gyms, and retail stores, but all are welcome to apply. Even though we’ll only be able to take pictures of a portion of those who apply due to the high demand, any business owner around the world can easily upload their own photographs and videos to their Place Page by logging in to Google Places.

Posted by Arjun Raman, Engineering Project Manager

Google Buzz layer now available for Google Maps on your computer

With Google Buzz for mobile, you can choose to post publicly and include your location, providing context for your followers and allowing others to see what you have to say about a place on a map. We’ve received a lot of requests to make the Google Buzz layer available on desktop Google Maps, and today we're doing just that.

Now you can use Google Maps from the comfort of your computer to find out what people are saying about places near and far. If you’re new to the public Google Buzz layer, check out some tips for exploring the Buzz layer on Google Maps for mobile to see a few of the fun ways people have already been using it on their phones, sharing everything from breaking news to restaurant recommendations.

To view the Google Buzz layer from your computer, go to Google Maps in your web browser and select Buzz from the More... menu in the top right corner of the map. Find an interesting area like your neighborhood and select any available icon to see what’s going on there. In the post’s window, click on the name to see the author’s public profile, the timestamp to comment on the post, or the place to see it in Maps. The Google Buzz layer is available for maps.google.com in all currently supported languages.

The desktop layer is view-only, however, you can post using Google Buzz for mobile from the web app (buzz.google.com), Google Maps for mobile, the Android widget, and more.

Posted by Ana Ulin and Evan Parker, Software Engineers, Google Mobile and Maps teams

Tags: coming to a city near you

A couple of months ago we announced a trial for a new and easy local advertising product through Google Places (the new name for the Local Business Center), that we referred to as “enhanced listings.” This flat-fee advertising feature costs $25 a month and enables a business owner to highlight an aspect of their listing that they think best reflects what they have to offer to customers. The little yellow tag accompanies the business listing whenever it shows up on Google and makes it stand out from the rest (without impacting its ranking in organic search results).

We have some updates about this feature:

• As the Local Business Center is now Google Places, enhanced listings are now called Tags. We think the new name better reflects the idea of adding a personalized line to a business listing.

• Originally offered in San Jose and Houston, Tags is now available in Atlanta, Austin, and Washington DC as well. Over the next couple of weeks we will add San Diego, Seattle, Boulder, Chicago, and San Francisco. You can fill out this form to be notified when Tags comes to your area.

• We’ll soon be offering a new type of Tag called “Posts.” Google Places recently introduced the ability to post to the Place Page, giving a business owner a way to enter a short, current, free-form message about their business that customers will see when they visit the business’ Place Page. In the next couple of weeks we will be launching these Posts as a Tag type in addition to the currently available options: photos, videos, website, coupons, directions, menu or reservations. A business will be able to highlight something special happening at their store - a sale, an upcoming event, or freshly baked banana bread. Potential customers will see this message as an extra line under the business listing in search results, giving them customized relevant information and inviting them to choose that store.

We hope you enjoy these additions to Tags. To learn more and try it out, please visit www.google.com/help/tags.

Posted by Shalini Agarwal, Product Manager

Show customers where you'll go with Google Places

Not all businesses serve their customers from a brick-and-mortar storefront. Folks like photographers, piano tuners, and plumbers tend to travel around town to provide their services, and may operate from home. To better connect with all the customers they serve, these businesses can now use Google Places to specify a service area -- that is, where they’re willing to travel to do business.

If you operate one of these types of businesses, you can set a service area for a listing in your Google Places account quickly and easily. If you have a limit to how far away you’re willing to travel, you can set your service area as a circle around a specific location. If you have a particular list of places where you work, you can list your areas served (by zip codes, cities, counties, or even neighborhoods).

When customers search for you on Google Maps, they’ll see something like this:

If you run your business from a home or private office and don’t have a location for customers to visit, you can choose to show your service area but mark the listing address as private in your Google Places account. When a customer searches for you, they’ll see the business service area, but no specific location marker:


In addition to letting business owners list their service areas, we’ve also aggregated data from third-party sources to expand the number of businesses with service areas and help keep the information accurate and up-to-date. To see a business’ service areas, click on the “show service area” option (when available) in the info bubble. To learn more about service areas on Google Maps and in your Google Places account, take a look at this short introductory video we’ve put together:

Posted by Ari Bezman, Product Manager

Introducing Google Places

[cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Today the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

We launched Place Pages last September for more than 50 million places around the world to help people make more informed decisions about where to go, from restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. Place Pages connect people to information from the best sources across the web, displaying photos, reviews and essential facts, as well as real-time updates and offers from business owners.

Four million businesses have already claimed their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. It also lets them communicate with customers and get insights that help them make smart business decisions.

Google Places will continue to offer these same tools, but the new name will simplify the connection with Place Pages. This reflects our ongoing commitment to providing business owners with powerful yet easy-to-use tools.

We're also introducing several new features:

• Service areas: If you travel to serve customers, you can now show which geographic areas you serve. And if you run a business without a storefront or office location, you can now make your address private.
• A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities — Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we'll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
• Business photo shoots: In addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which we'll use to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages. We've been experimenting with this over the past few months, and now have created a site for businesses to learn more and express their interest in participating.
• Customized QR codes: From the dashboard page of Google Places, businesses in the U.S. can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.
• Favorite Places: We're doing a second round of our Favorite Places program, and are mailing window decals to 50,000 businesses around the U.S. These decals include a QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to directly view the mobile Place Page for the business to learn more about their great offerings.

Over the past few months we've also added the ability for business owners to post real-time updates to their Place Page. You might want to promote a sale, a special event or anything else that you want customers to know right now, and this feature lets you communicate that directly to your customers. You can also provide extra incentive by adding coupons, including ones specially formatted for mobile phones.

To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

One out of five searches on Google are related to location, and we want to make sure that businesses are able to be found and put their best foot forward. We’re excited to announce Google Places today, as it’s just the beginning of what’s to come from our efforts to make Google more local. If you want to learn more about Google Places, we’d like to invite you to an upcoming overview webinar, or you can visit our newly updated Help Center. We’ll also be posting on the Lat Long blog throughout the week to give a deeper dive into many of our newest features. To get started now, go to google.com/places.

Posted by John Hanke, VP Google Maps, Earth and Local

Imagery for Qinghai, China earthquake

On Tuesday, April 13, a powerful 6.9 earthquake shook the province of Qinghai, China, resulting in widespread destruction and the loss of more than 1,700 lives. Working closely with GeoEye, we’ve been able to acquire some high resolution post-earthquake imagery, which vividly illustrates the magnitude of this tragic event.

(click image to view full-size; click here to view in Google Earth)

To see more of this imagery, you can download the KML here and open it in Google Earth.

In addition, an international team, including many of our Chinese Googlers, have worked to create a Crisis Response page for the earthquake with several additional resources:

• The China Person Finder tool, which can be used to submit or search for information about individuals who may have been affected. It is available in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and English, and is accessible on mobile. We encourage organizations and media sites to embed the gadget on their sites and help spread the word.
• Google News and real-time search, which features posts to Twitter and other sources. This provides the latest information from authoritative sources and people on the ground.
• A My Map to help users contribute data about Qinghai, such as the conditions in specific areas and rescue efforts underway.

The Chinese version of this page can be accessed from a link on our homepages on google.com.hk and google.com.tw, and we will continue to update the pages as more materials become available.

Posted by Pete Giencke, GIS Data Engineer

Satellite imagery of Icelandic volcano ash plume

Today, the skies above my home in England are noticeably empty. The UK air traffic authorities and many others across Europe have closed the airspace due to safety fears from an enormous ash cloud originating from the eruption of the Eyjafjallajoekull volcano in Iceland - around 1000 miles from London. No flights are allowed in or out and this will remain the case until at least Friday afternoon.

Friends elsewhere around the world were asking me to describe what it was like, but conditions are relatively clear where I am so even I couldn't fully understand or explain the scope. Of course, I naturally turned to satellite imagery to get a better sense of the situation. The NASA MODIS Rapid Response system collected an image earlier this afternoon showing the eruption site sending a huge plume of ash up into the atmosphere towards Europe - and major airways used by thousands of aircraft each day. This image has been made available for download in Google Earth, which you can see by clicking on this KML file.

Courtesy of NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response

Our partners at GeoEye have also added high-resolution imagery from March 31st of the actual eruption site at Eyjafjallajoekull to the GeoEye Featured Imagery layer. To access it, open Google Earth, open the More category in the Layers panel, and turn on GeoEye Featured Imagery. Then search for Iceland, click on the GeoEye logo at the south end of the island, and then click "View Full Resolution Image in Google Earth" in the window that pops up:

click to see full-size

We're also closely following the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Qinghai, China and are currently working to acquire and publish imagery. We will share it on this blog as soon as it becomes available; in the meantime please visit our Crisis Response page for the earthquake.

Update, 4/20: We've added new imagery, taken by GeoEye-1 on April 17, to Google Earth. Turn on the "Places of Interest" layer, navigate to Iceland, and click the blue logo to view the imagery. Here's a preview:

Posted by Phil Verney, Geo Data Specialist

The world just became smaller: driving directions in 111 new countries

Members of our Google Map Maker community have always told us that the biggest milestone after launching maps for their countries is adding driving directions. A few months ago we launched driving directions in 18 countries in Eastern Europe and Asia-Pacific. We have now enabled directions in 111 new countries and territories across the globe.

So, whether you find yourself in Lima, Peru or visiting Iceland or driving from Johannesburg to Nairobi, you can now use Google Maps to find out how to get around.

Driving directions on Google Maps are now available for:

Algeria, American Samoa, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Aruba, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Fiji, French Guiana, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Iceland, Iran, Jamaica, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands Antilles, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Qatar, Reunion, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna, Western Sahara, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Do give it a try and tell us what you think on Map Your World Community. If you find something that is missing or not otherwise quite right, you can always map it at www.google.com/mapmaker.

Posted by Vishwajith Krishnamurthy, Software Engineer; Zareer K'Maneck, Program Manager; and Manik Gupta, Product Manager

Dazzling new 3D buildings for New York City in Google Earth

[From time to time we invite guests to blog about initiatives of interest, and are very pleased to have George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company join us here. – Ed.]

In January 2009, NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization of New York City, launched nycgo.com and opened an information center that makes it easier for visitors and residents to explore all the vibrancy, excitement and diversity of New York City's five boroughs.

Mirroring the integrated Google Maps on the website, our highly interactive Official NYC Information Center in Midtown Manhattan includes Google Maps–based Interactive Map Tables where you can plan your visit and a beautiful Video Wall featuring 3D imagery of New York City in Google Earth that lets you “fly” through your selected itinerary. Since we opened our doors, thousands of tourists have virtually explored New York in our center before venturing out on their own.

When Google let us know that they would be releasing new, high-quality 3D imagery of New York City, we were excited to help spread the word. The new imagery will be an amazing improvement to our already-stunning Video Wall and will help us to reach our goals in making New York City more accessible to visitors and residents alike. The detail at the street level, as you’ll see in the video below, makes it easier than ever to virtually experience our variety of cultural institutions, storefronts and residential and commercial buildings.



We invite you to come by the Information Center to see for yourself, or to power up Google Earth and explore the Big Apple from your desktop or phone.


George Fertitta, Chief Executive Officer of NYC & Company

Google Earth helps discover rare hominid ancestor in South Africa

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Today, scientists announced a new hominid fossil discovery in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. The discovery is one of the most significant palaeoanthropological discoveries in recent times, revealing at least two partial hominid skeletons in remarkable condition, dating to between 1.78 and 1.95 million years. We are especially excited because Google Earth played a role in its discovery.


So how did this come about? Back in March 2008, Professor Lee Berger from Witswatersrand University in Johannesburg started to use Google Earth to map various known caves and fossil deposits identified by him and his colleagues over the past several decades, as it seemed the ideal platform by which to share information with other scientists. In addition, he also used Google Earth to locate new fossil deposits by learning to identify what cave sites looked like in satellite images.

At the beginning of this project, there were approximately 130 known cave sites in the region
and around 20 fossil deposits. With the help of the navigation facility and high-resolution satellite imagery in Google Earth, Professor Berger went on to find almost 500 previously unidentified caves and fossil sites, even though the area is one of the most explored in Africa. One of these fossil sites yielded the remarkable discovery of a new species, Australopithecus sediba. This species was an upright walker that shared many physical traits with the earliest known species of the genus homo—and its introduction into the fossil record might answer some key questions about our earliest ancestry in Africa.

We’re absolutely thrilled about this announcement, and delighted that our free mapping tools such as Google Earth and Google Maps continue to enable both individuals and distinguished scientists to explore and learn about their world. With these tools, places both foreign and familiar can be explored with the click of a mouse, allowing for new understandings of geography, topology, urbanism, development, architecture and the environment. Our efforts to organize the world’s geographic information are ongoing — but at the end of the day, seeing the way these tools are put to use is what most inspires us.



Posted by Michael Jones, Chief Technology Advocate