My Google Map Blog

Five years ago, Google unveiled a new YouTube layer for Google Earth. Thanks to the explosive growth of YouTube, this layer is more active than ever. It can now be found under the main [Gallery] layer.

Since then, we've seen some other great uses of YouTube with Google Earth, such as Keir Clarke's synchronized YouTube tours or when Frank copied a real flight video from YouTube in Google Earth (which was cool enough to impress then-CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt).

To explore the videos in Google Earth, enable the layer and zoom in on an area. The YouTube icons will appear and you can click on one to watch the video inside of Google Earth.

If you upload a video to YouTube that you'd like to have appear in the layer, you simply need to "allow embedding" and provide a location for the video when you upload it. Once that is done, it will appear in Google Earth in the future for all to see.

We're clearly big fans of the KML/KMZ format here at Google Earth Blog. It's an amazing (and simple) way to share complex geo data with anyone that you wish to share it with. In fact, many of our posts include direct downloads to KML/KMZ files to help augment the content in the post.

I also use Google Analytics quite often. As part of GreenMellen Media, we track website statistics for hundreds of clients and Google Analtyics is by far our preferred way to do it. We also use it to track data here on Google Earth Blog to help determine where visitors are coming from and what content they're finding most appealing. It's a free tool, very powerful, and can provide amazing insights into traffic sources and trends.

Until now, though, tracking KMZ file downloads using Google Analytics was difficult. It's always been possible, but not easy to implement. Thanks to the folks at Arc2Earth.com, it's now much easier.

If you use their Arc2Earth Desktop software, you can simply enter your Google Analytics Account Number and it will largely take care of the rest. Once you have it set up, the data will appear in Google Analytics along with all of your other website statistics.

It's a great way to track KMZ downloads and seems to work quite well. To learn more about this new feature, you can read the full entry on the Arc2Earth blog.