No foolin'! I am so excited about this. From MSNBC.com:
Check it out: now I've just refined my map a bit and here's a link to it. Please click around 'cause I added some fun stuff including two shaded areas, defined their parameters, added/edited their shading and borders and added text and links to describe placemarkers, routes and areas. It's surprisingly intuitive and offers quite a bit of customizability. Once you draw a rough parameter, for example, it offers points along the outline which then become draggable so that the area can be defined further.
Now, this is a very crude map I just made, using other folks' images and whatnot. Ideally, I will use pics and videos I make myself. Additionally, I use Gmaps Pedometer to plan running routes. I wonder how long it will be before I can import routes into a new G Map. OMG; and I haven't even begun to scratch Google Earth's surface... I imagine this will unlock all kinds of possibilities.
Functionality I've wanted to see for a long time on Google Maps is something similar to their search results: it will show, say, 10 options in a given area for a particular kind of thing. Like, restaurants near a certain address. I've always been frustrated that I can't mark multiple locations on a G Map; I can only get directions from point A to B. But screw that! Now you can draw it yourself. While a little tedious, I admit, I love stuff like this. And no doubt my wish will come true soon enough (being able to mark several locations on a G Map just based on a few inputs), but in the meantime, this is really fun.
As part of an initiative being launched [April 5, 2007], [Google] will provide free tools designed to make it easy for people to share their knowledge about their neighborhoods and other favorite places by creating customized maps that can assemble information from a variety of sources.Google has now given users the functionality to mark places, draw routes, draw shapes and input text, images and video. Users also have the option of making private maps, or making them public (I'm not sure if this means they will be editable by anyone or just viewable). And it's already up. I just made my own map inserting a marker at my place of business as the "Awesomest Place on Earth", drew a line from there to another favorite spot downtown, then got directions from Roanoke, Va (for kicks) to the "Awesomest Place". The interface understood from my marker over the satellite image of the building in which I work how to draw directions there. This is so freaking rad. I'm losing my mind.
Cool - I'm going to try this myself!