Session Blog Reviews

Posts Tagged ‘location’

Google Maps added user photos from Panaramio to Street View last year. They started with photos around major landmarks and added user photos for all their Street Views as well as maps without Street View. Now geo-tagged, user-submitted Flickr photos as well as other location-specific photos from Google’s own Picasa are more a part of Google Maps’ offerings than ever: Google’s adding new ways to find the photos and better integrating them with their own street-level views . The new integration will show the user photos just like it used to (accessible through a thumbnail shot in the upper-right), but it will also interconnect the user photos. If they have a better shot of a Street View or user photo, an “orb” will appear in the image when a user rolls their mouse over it. Click on the orb to see the better view. Google uses its recognition and matching technology to identify views of the same building and link them to the maps. They also put an orb on adjacent images if they have a better view of those. Read Write Web points out this may be a direct challenge to Bing’s Maps with Photosynth , originally integrated into Microsoft’s maps offering in 2008. As always, Google explains with a video, too: In other Google Maps news, they’re also offering a service to try to help locate loved ones in the aftermath of the Chile earthquake this weekend. What do you think? Is this a Bing Maps killer—and does Google really need one?

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Google Maps Integrates Flickr Photos

Google recently made search improvements as your roam around by adding the My Location option to mobile search . The idea is to help everyone find things that can be visited, used or accessed right then and there based on your location. While there is plenty of concentration on the mobile side of search they have not let the local aspect of search from the desktop get stale either. Last year Google started to give Google map results even if there was no local qualifier in the search which moved local search to the next level. The latest enhancement allows you to look for things that are nearby but with a slightly different twist. The Google blog tells us Starting today, we’ve added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing webpages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.” Check it out by doing a search, clicking on “show options” and selecting “Nearby.” This can come in handy in planning trips or a variety of ways. By creating more options on the geography that are not anchored to specific keywords this certainly adds more power to the local search capabilities of the search giant. Here’s my question though. How many people does Google think will adopt this option? Most users of search are so unsophisticated that they will have no clue that this option exists. How many times have you seen someone type in a full URL into a Google search rather than into the browser? I suppose these things are good to have as more people get educated regarding search but most people just type in their basic needs and either refine from there or get frustrated and move on. If I were Google I would work to educate the true masses about what they can actually do with Google. Right now I think that they feel that by telling the “industry” that it’s enough. Trouble is it’s not. If the ‘regular’ searcher doesn’t even know these things exist is Google missing the full value of these offerings? Just a thought.

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Google Helps You Find Things Nearby

Well folks it looks like the days of advertising free tweeting may finally be coming to an end. The rumors are flying around regarding the ad platform that Twitter has in the works and is testing. Everyone is “atwitter” with this change and for good reason. Of course, until there is more than what has already been released by Twitter itself any ideas / thoughts about what Twitter ads might look like are for the imagination. MediaPost reports on how this whole thing really started to bubble to the surface. Twitter plans to launch an advertising platform in about a month, according to Seth Goldstein. The chief executive officer and co-founder of socialmedia.com led a panel Monday focused on the next wave of interactive advertising at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2010 in Carlsbad, Calif., that shed light on Twitter’s strategy. Declining to confirm exactly when Twitter would release the platform, Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, told MediaPost following the panel that “we are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.” So while Seth Goldstein picked up some pub for being the “unofficial” press release of sorts for this next phase of Twitter it is probably too early to speculate on when this will be less talk and more reality. In the meantime let’s see what people are or have been putting out there. The Washington Post reminded us of Robert Scoble’s idea of the SuperTweet he introduced back in November Robert Scoble, for instance, suggests the idea of a SuperTweet with all sorts of metadata that pops up when part of the message is rolled over with your mouse. This data could include things such as the location of the Tweet and how many times it’s been retweeted, but it could also trigger a contextual ad triggered by certain keywords. Other questions that need to be considered on how will these ads be paid for. Will there be an AdSense type platform for Twitter users to share in the wealth? Where will the ads appear if they are not in the stream? The list goes on and on. What are your thoughts on Twitter ads? Are you looking forward to seeing them? Will they impact your Twitter experience? Do you have a particular format that might or might not work for you? Why not join in on the speculation and guessing. Your guess is as valid as the next guy’s right now.

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Will Twitter Ads Be 140 Characters or Less?