Google Maps is Google’s free web-based mapping application. Google Maps includes photos, videos, and user-created maps along with location searches. Today, Google Maps continues to add functionality at a rapid pace – making it one of the fasting growing online applications worth reviewing.  Here are a few features worth noting: 

MyMaps:  Google has added features to Google Maps that let you save, annotate, and share directions using MyMaps. Users can save driving directions by simply clicking the "save to my maps" link below the directions. 

Your Latest Twitter Status on Google Maps:  The latest Google Maps Mashup takes your latest Twitter Status Update along with your profile location and displays it on Google Maps. The more detailed your profile location is, the higher the zoom level. So if you have a iPhone generated profile location (which is in the form of latitude, longitude) you will get the highest zoom level. Here's the url: (replace mibazaar at the end of the url with your twitter user id) http://www.mibazaar.com/twitstat.php?uid=mibazaar

Mobile: Google Maps is available on mobile devices. The feature is experimental and limits participation to American owners of the 8110, 8120, and 8130 BlackBerry Pearl models.  If you use one of these models, you only need to press "0" to center your map view and then hold the left-side key while you say the name or type of business you're looking for to get some results, according to a post on the Google Mobile Blog. 

Additional Routes: Under the “Suggested Routes” heading, you will now be able to access other routes to the same destination. This is a feature that GPS systems in car, like a Garmin device, have been offering for quite some time so it makes sense that Google would want to catch up. Google says that they choose alternative routes bases on many factors, including distance, travel time, and number of turns. Google Maps boils this data down to what is the lowest “cost” and ranks the routes based upon the “cost.” 

Just for Fun! Google have released a Google Earth plug-in game that lets you drive a Lunar Rover on the moon. The game allows you to drive around the various Apollo moon landing sites. The Apollo 11 site is a good place to start because it also contains a model of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. Get it here: Google Geo Developers Blog: Moon in the Google Earth Plug-in!

Great Resource:

Google Maps Mania (Blog)

TechCrunch (Various search results on Google Maps)

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Denice MacDonald