I was going to write up more on Google Maps and its integration of Keyhole, but to see its power, just read this entry from Don Park.
I spoke to John Hanke, the CEO of Keyhole and now GM of the unit within Google. His vision early on was to see his product in the hands of millions of people. I think he’s succeeded. I used Google Maps/Keyhole to “walk” up Mount Tam last night. It’s just really cool. And it brings a new view of the world into our lives, one I am sure will be enriched by layers of metadata – traffic information, rainfall stats, historical data, user tagged information of all sorts (“Click here to see my Flickr gallery from this vista”) etc. Cool. Very cool. But…will it be open? For now, this world is closed to Google, and only Google can determine what data will be layered on top of it. But imagine if the company opened up an API to it? Now that would be Not Evil.
Update: No sooner did I post this than I saw Memorymap, a Flickr/Google Maps mashup. Cool (and thanks, Kevin). And MyGmaps! (Thanks, Philipp)
hey John,
re: maps.google.com being closed, I think you’re a mac guy, but the keyhole desktop product is ‘more’ open in that you can create xml files in a specific format (KML) that contains placemarks (keyhole lingo) which can then be layered into the keyhole desktop app. It’s even encouraged! There’s a pretty cool forum on keyhole.com where people exchange locations, etc..:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/boards/ubbthreads/
AJ
John,
You need to check out MotionBased for a library of outdoor activities tracked via GPS. Most of the routes are for running and biking, but the MotionBased TrailNetwork is growing everyday with a library of activities from around the world. While we don’t support Google Maps, we do offer up a variety of street, satellite, topo, and elevation maps. We recently offered a tight integration with the Keyhole desktop application which shows your exact route on the map.
Here’s a link for one of my hikes on Tam:
Coastal – Stinson – Steep Ravine
John,
I bought a professional license to Keyhole 3 years ago and developed an amazing project for the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. What you could do with the standalone product: Earthviewer, was nothing short of amazing! I only hope that Google will allow for the full 3D nature of the database to be maximized. With Earthviewer you could layer TONS of data on top of it
This will enable us to do so much in our lives by simply finding places we want to go and get directions even easier. I can already see this map on my dashboard a few years from now. Hope it will become available soon.