New Google Earth Features: Wikipedia, Panoramio and Google Earth Community

We think Google Earth is one of the best technologies that Google has come up with so far. Well, of course Google Maps is more accessible because of the fact that it’s on the Web. But if you have the time, processing power and bandwidth, Google Earth can definitely give you a better experience.

For one, you can download .KMZ files and load them on Google Earth, and you can see user-created overlays. Perhaps Google Maps only has satellite imagery of your city, and not vector information (meaning the streets, buildings, and other features). Someone else may have created their own vector map on Google Earth. You can then load this up yourself. While I do believe you can also do this on Google Maps, you would need external web applications to overlay images or vector information. Either that, or you can develop the software yourself. Not very easy, if I must say.

So, what’s so great about this feature? Well, this means there are infinite possibilities. Either Google can come up with additional layers of information that can be overlaid on the base “map,” or third parties can do so.

Recently, the Google Earth team has announced the addition of information from Wikipedia, Panoramio, and Google Earth Community as browsable layers.

• Panoramio is a community site that lets users map photos. It’s based on Google Maps, and it lets users browse geo-tagged photos right on the Google Maps interface. Geo-tagging means that geographic coordinates are included in the JPEG file of your photo. Some cameras include this when you take pictures, or you can manually indicate the location on Panoramio.
• The Google Earth Community is a user-oriented site that lets end-users upload KMZs that they have created themselves. Notable in these submissions are areas that are not found on Google Earth by default (such as countries or cities without official Google Maps/Earth vector information).
• Of course, we know Wikipedia to be the most popular encyclopedia today, with content being user-submitted and edited. You can find all sorts of information here, and you can expect these to be updated as things happen.

Using the overlays is easy. In Google Earth, simply look for the Geographic web checkbox under Layers. You can either check the box to enable all the new layers, or you can expand the selection by clicking on the “+” icon to choose which among these you wish to activate.

Once activated, you can now search for your favorite locations or tourist spots around the globe, and you will see additional information on those items.

Simply click on the points marked with icons (blue Xs for Panoramio, “i” for Google Earth Community, and “W” for Wikipedia), and you will see the expanded information.

This makes it easier for user-generated content to be browsed on Google Earth. You would no longer have to manually download and load such information because Google has them loaded by default.