Realty Times - Google Puts More Where In There

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Google Puts More Where In There

by Broderick Perkins

Two new online mapping features offer literal spins on the way we get from one location to another and how we learn more about where we are going.

The Web-based applications can give consumers a better look at where they are and they can serve as marketing tools for professionals looking to send their business in the right direction.

During Silicon Valley's Where 2.0 location aware technology conference in San Jose this week, virtual tours hit the street as Google rotated the bird's eye view of satellite imagery 90 degrees and swooped in to get a down-to-earth look at the neighborhood, much as Google Earth has been looking at select locations around the globe for years now.

The company also rolled out developers' tools to create mini applications to put more pop in maps, including those that feature home listings.

Both new features operate from Google Maps, provided you've got a computer system with enough robust software.

Limited right now only to the streets of the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami, "Street View" is a new feature of Google Maps that lets you view and navigate from street level, as opposed to over head. "Walk" up and down the street, "spin around," and "look" behind you, examine houses, buildings, landmarks and other neighborhood features from street level.

With Google's existing mapping features you can pinpoint locations and then zoom in and check them out along with the surrounding community. It's not real time, but you'll get a good idea of where you are before you get there.

Street View uses data gathered by Immersive Media and is similar to Microsoft's "Street Side" rolled out in Seattle and San Francisco a year ago.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth/Live Search competes with Google Earth/Maps both online and with downloadable software.

A video from the Where 2.0 conference shows how the street level images are captured.

The second Google mapping feature is something called "Mapplets" for both consumers, business and software developers.

Much like "Gadgets" that spring from the "dock" on Apple Macintosh computers, Mapplets are mini-applications or Google Gadgets that pop up from Google Maps and other Google sites and can contain a variety of information including home listings, crime data and school information.

Use the Mapplet preview with a home listing that pops up with the address and other listing information. Then go to the Street View and walk the street, circle the block, view the neighborhood and check out the home in place. Not all homes listed are viewable. Users can create their own Mapplets and make them available to the public.

Also, users creating their own maps can select from a wide range of Google and third party Mapplets to display on the Google Maps site, combined with Google Maps' existing built-in local search and driving directions functions.

Published: June 1, 2007

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Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home.

The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services.

The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home.

Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News.

Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake.

He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications.

In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.

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