My Google Map Blog

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Six years ago, Frank Taylor made a cool pumpkin overlay for Google Earth. It's still a fun toy to play with, so we're showing it off again. To make it work, simply download the KML here and that's it!

For maximum benefit, turn off the atmosphere ("View -> Atmosphere") and the "Borders & Labels" (found in the "Layers" on the left side of your Google Earth window).

The pumpkin was created using a simple image overlay that he wrapped around the globe, then added a 3D model for the stem. You can read details on how that's done in this post of his from a few years ago.

If you want more, you can check out a bunch of Halloween goodness in the 3D Warehouse or maybe check out the "Pumpkin Man" in Google StreetView, found in the Disney Resort in Paris.

Happy Halloween!

Almost exactly a year ago we first told you about YoubeQ, a 3D social network that lives inside of the Google Earth plug-in. It was an ambitious project, and the team has continued to build out the product and add features and they've just released a handful of new updates.

Their big new addition is called "the Place". Users can create a "place" any time to geo locate whatever he desires. With these Places you can put on the 3D map what you have been doing, when, how and with whom. You can place where you first fell in love or your first kiss, or previous homes, places you wish to travel to, etc. Before sharing a place you can add a lot of content like a tag, image, link or youtube video.

They've also been working hard to make youbeQ a better tool for business. It feels a bit like when businesses started to join SecondLife years ago, but hopefully this tool can stick around. Here is their list of "10 reasons you should use youbeQ for business":

1. You can publish all of your information in a geolocated interface.

2. Put your stores, events, meetings on the map and other information that is relevant
for your customers.

3. Connect with your customers and engage them.

4. Make challenges and reward your customers - makes people come back.

5. With youbeQ mobile you can publish places about your business and make people nearby your location visit you. Important for business that rely on foot traffic (restaurants, retailers, bars).

6. Gathering geographic market information. Find what your customers like.

7. Target your customers based on their location.

8. Manage your brand image and awareness in your community.

9. Create viral and word-of-mouth marketing.

10. Make your presence in the virtual world, and impact the real.

It'll be interesting to see if companies take advantage of this or not. I expect it will be like most social networks, where businesses will join if/when the userbase becomes large enough.

They've also created a mobile app for Android users (currently in alpha). Their goals for this app:

People using this version can be geo located and communicate live with virtual users from the web site. Someone walking on the street can be seen inside the platform; and with a Smartphone, in the outside, you can see who is in the same area, inside the platform, where you are at that precise moment. We are crossing virtual users with real users and vice versa.

An iOS app is in their plans, but it won't be released anytime soon.

You can find the Android app here, and you're encourage to visit the main youbeQ site to try it all out for yourself.

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Here's a neat script from digital inspiration that can grab your contact list from Google Contacts and covert them into a big KML file to view in Google Earth. If you use Google for your main contact management (synced to your phone, etc), then this script could yield some pretty neat results for you.

It's really a pretty simple process. Copy their special spreadsheet into your Google Drive account, then the follow the included instructions. While there are seemingly no issues in loading this spreadsheet and granting it access to your account, certainly be careful when granting scripts that kind of access.

You can also view the resulting map in Google Maps. Take the KML file, upload it somewhere (including your Dropbox folder, for example) and then just copy the link into Google Maps.

(via Lifehacker)

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