Since its inception, Google Earth has been seen as a tool of enormous potential. Originally called Earth Viewer, and then re-named Google Earth in 2005, following the acquisition of Keyhole Inc. by Google in 2004, the program presents users with a virtual 3D globe that can be explored in a variety of increasingly diverse and interesting ways.As the latest update to Google Earth 4.3 provides increased language support with Danish, English (UK), Finnish, Hebrew, Indonesian, Norwegian, Portuguese (PT), Romanian, Swedish, Spanish (Latin American), Thai, and Turkish, and enhanced navigation tools
Adding mapping information such as image acquisition date timestamps, the additional of new layers to the existing views like the street view option which originated in Google Maps in 2007, has provided a boost to the service's usability, and with plans for future developments in the pipeline there is an obvious drive within Google to make this a valuable resource.
The inclusion of new layers of information like the recent implementation of geographically available Google News overlays could represent a huge leap in the capabilities of this service and lead the way to a fully integrated graphically based Google search service. By adding the capability to view Google News at a national level and then scroll down to more specific localised stories, as well as view photos and information about the area or building being viewed, as well as allowing links to additional information sources, the service is already showing just how powerful it has the potential to be as a research tool.
With services like Google Earth Outreach, and climate change modelling tools, Google Earth is seen by many as still just an experimental lab with an educational and philanthropic edge to it. However while still effectively in its early days, it is likely to be only a matter of time until Google combine the Google Earth and Google Maps services with the vast array of other existing sources of information which Google has available to them to provide a fully immersible geographical search facility.
As Google is promising more prevalent 3D displays of building models and the inclusion of tagging meta data to structures, a geographic search of this type would be an obvious boon to quick footed members of the travel industry. This will also rapidly provide a useful alternative means of business promotion as increasing numbers of user filterable layers become included with attendant increased service pick up by users.
With new revenue streams being constantly sought by the major search engines, and geographic advertising already available through the likes of sponsored links on Google Maps and regionally targeted AdWords, it seems Google already has the makings of a future advertising program which could easily be integrated into Google Earth.
It appears that the search giant may have plenty of new tricks up its sleeve to combat the recent attempts of other big names to bring Google back down to earth in the online mapping world.
