Google Mapplets mashup mania

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 15 July 2007 07:09

Opinion and Analysis

The mix and match of mashing up third party info on top of Google’s maps is now an official feature of Google Maps – and Google’s calling these mini-apps “Mapplets”.

Having a map is a great thing, as it helps you find where you are, where you’ve been and where you want to go. Today’s paper maps often include as much information as they can squeeze onto the page, such as points of interest in addition to street and other location information.

But when it comes to computer generated mapping, the possibilities of including far more information that is possible on paper become almost limitless, given there is so much information available on just about any location you can name.

This is where Google’s new Mapplets comes into play, making it possible for Google Maps users to customize and overlay lots of different information over maps than simply street names and the standard “points of interest” like parks, street lights, gas stations, churches, schools, parks and more.

At Google’s press release on the subject, they give a range of examples that web users can take advantage of today, and even boast that 100 such ‘Mapplets’ are now ready and waiting for users to, well… use.

These examples include mapplets on real estate listings (and associated public transport maps and crime stats for a given area), jogging trails, hotels, weather forecasts, gas prices (in addition to the location of gas stations), local events, and even photos and live webcams of the area in question, if available – amongst many more, and many more to come.

Mapplets that you add to Google Maps can be saved as a custom map, letting you add notes and even easily share your new maps with friends and family. 

Google says that Mapplets can be found by clicking on the "Add content" link in the "My Maps" tab in Google Maps, where you click on the "Add it to Maps" buttons within the directory to bookmark content relevant to you.

Many of the Mapplets currently available have been developed by third parties, such as Orbitz, WeatherBug, GasBuddy.com, Zvents and many others, while Google have also developed their own Mapplets, such as a Google Real Estate Search and a YouTube Video search letting you watch videos based on the location they were uploaded from, anywhere around the world.

Given that third parties are welcome to develop Mapplets on the “Google Mapplets Platform”, Google have created a special web page with more information so developers can start writing Mapplets which overlay their content on Google Maps and are then made available in the directory which has the potential of reaching millions of Google’s users.

Google’s Mapplets are currently available to users in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Italty, Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia, and is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian and Chinese.

So, if anyone ever tells you to get lost, you can tell them that with Google Maps and Mapplets, getting lost should be nigh on impossible!