Google launches My Maps, plugs local search holes.

April 4, 2007
ByLeah Messinger
Hackers have done it for years. So have JavaScript users. Now you can, too.
Google on Thursday was poised to launch My Maps, a new Google Maps interface that allows visitors to easily create map-based mashups.
Google has offered for free the Google Maps API, a programming interface for making mashups, user-generated content derived from multiple sources. But only those fluent in JavaScript could take advantage of this feature and they could not charge for their mashups.
As of Thursday, however, less tech-savvy users can develop similar map-based mashups, featuring specific locations, embedded video, uploaded photos, and original text.
“It gives people easy-to-use tools to be creative and generate their own mashups,” wrote analyst Greg Sterling in an email.
In the internal Google contest that served as a trial run for My Maps, Google employees developed mashups showing the best cafés in Paris; a red-and-blue map illustrating the results of the 2004 presidential election, along with related percentages; and a map, including videos and photos, illustrating a Johns Hopkins University student’s Route 66 summer research project.
Another Google worker made a résumé mashup featuring pinpoints showing former workplaces and text balloons describing job responsibilities.
Myriad Benefits
For Google, the benefits of such an interface are manyfold. For one, the company gets free content. Mashup makers can choose to keep their mashups private, but they can also make them public. With the launch, user-generated content will begin appearing below main map search results.
And in regions outside the 10 countries in which Google now offers local business search, user-generated content will fill some gaping holes. “In countries where we haven’t yet launched Google Maps, this will provide content in the meantime,” said company spokesperson Megan Quinn.
My Maps will also allow Google a way to organize obscure information the company likely would otherwise overlook. “From a strategic perspective, Google wouldn’t staff any resources to work on making the best bird-watching maps for Finland,” said product manager Jessica Lee. Now Finnish birders—or Google Maps users with a burning interest in Nordic birds—have the opportunity to create those maps themselves.
“It will be interesting to see what people generate with it,” Mr. Sterling said.