Google Released My Maps accessible from maps.google.com

Make Google Maps your maps.
Create and share personalized, annotated maps of your world. Learn more.

   * Mark your favorite places on your map.
   * Draw lines and shapes to highlight paths and areas.
   * Add your own text, photos, and videos.
   * Publish your map to the web.
   * Share your map with friends and family.

CNet Link: http://news.com.com/Google+makes+mashups+easy%2C+even+for+me/2100-1025_3-6173463.html?tag=nefd.lede

Right Click works too.

Tried it. pretty Cool.

That's intense. I like it.

I love the idea and now I am busying creating my own maps.

Seattle Times article about this new feature:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/APWires/tech/D8OA8TTG0.html

This is pretty cool but I wish they would add a feature that allowed me to measure the distance of lines that were drawn. For instance, If I run in the morning and want to create a map that I share with other runners, they should allow me to display how many miles my running distance was by measuring the line(s) I drew.

I was going to say exactly the same thing! It is very cool indeed, but I've always missed a walking-directions feature in Google Maps – since I walk across London every day – and I'd love to know distances. I thought a distance measure would come automatically with this. Soon, perhaps.

In the meantime, and more generally, My Maps is going to be fantastically useful.

[moved from new thread]

BTW, Is anyone having problems logging in? I can't get logged in. As soon as I submit my password, It brings me to the "My Maps" page and said I have been logged out.

If anyone created interesting My Maps, please share the permalink! All I did was a test so far...

In Philipp's test and others the words "view only" appear. That's a good sign, no? They'll be introducing collaboration, so that you can invite people to edit your maps (as with Docs and Spreadsheets etc).

You can imagine clubs and societies and charity walks and friends working on neat maps together, for their group or the world at large.

Oh my goodness! A face on US soil!

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&om=1&z=5&ll=39.300299,-95.910645&spn=26.914275,41.132813&t=k&msid=102472719484927860784.00000111c19376e09f69a&msa=0

There is a new KML link beside the print option. Is it new?

One more thing is that if you use the scroll wheel in Google Maps a small animation around the cursor shows that zoom in / out has occured. Again my question... is it new?

- I am asking because I have not been able to seriously monitor the updates for Google as I had my O' Level exams. -

A pritty cool feature, bud how is it possible that I cant link photo's from my Picasa Web Album? Do I something wrong?

Is there a search engine for the personal maps?

whats the KLM button doing on top ? I think yo can export the KLM and port it into Earth too.. thats way to kewl I think.. still trying it..

heres my small little test

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&z=14&ll=43.603578,-79.590712&spn=0.029957,0.061712&om=1&msid=108480647436452727904.00000111c1b577565f54f&msa=0

Righto, Philipp asks – Philipp gets. This is my World Cup 2007 venue mashup converted to 'My Maps' mashup. Took about 1 hour to convert.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?f=q&hl=en&layer=&om=1&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=112503165633966220500.00000111c181be16626a2

Click the KML link or icon in the orange title bar. Google Maps uploads a KML file to your computer that you can open in Google Earth..

Very clever solution to the "how to add intermediant points on lines" problem.

Zoom on mouse-wheel is not new.

Picasa is not getting linked in.. is any1 else having the same issue ?? (using rich txt formating).. have not tried html ..!

Picasa embedding works, check out:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=112503165633966220500.00000111c219241b52e0d

Just navigate to your photo in Picasaweb and get the code from 'Link to this Photo – HTML to embed in website'. Then past that in to the HTML editor for your placemark.

if you have seen the example "Photo of life at Google Headquarters" (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&z=17&ll=37.423063,-122.083672&spn=0.003672,0.007006&om=1&msid=103763259662194171141.00000111b083b28bf007c&msa=0), you can view MORE photos via Picasa :
http://picasaweb.google.com/mapshop.maps/GooglePictures

Yes, I believe Picasa disallows hotlinking, apparently even from other Google services, so I guess you must use the official Picasa permalink as Reto describes!

I wonder if embedded images will be monitored? Or can people now start to display, say, adult images with viagra advertisement on Google Maps?

Printing map annotations doesn't work at this point. There's a workaround though: you can copy-paste the KML link on top of your own map and query it in the Google Maps search field. Google will then display the content of the KML file on the map, which you then can print without any problem.

Hmmm... Sometimes it's Google playing catch-up. Microsoft's "local.live.com" has had "collections" since November:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/msn/factsheet/LiveLocalFS.mspx

Same thing, 'cept that lines drawn actually include distance.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&om=1&z=10&ll=54.253994,-7.009277&spn=0.571216,1.2854&t=k&msid=106137083022328988944.00000111c26b880fcd85a&msa=0
My map on the NI troubles. Its a work in progres.<--------like my spelling.

mrbene:

There's nothing wrong with playing catch-up if you're behind. Once someone has a feature you don't it's a bit of a no-win. Either its 'Microsoft does collections and Google doesn't' or 'Google's just copying Microsoft's collections'.

That said, I think GoogleMaps is ahead of Live Local in general, but that doesn't mean Yahoo Maps and Live Local don't also have good ideas that Google should consider implementing.

mrbene

It's not really catch up when google had this feature already in Google Earth. It's more that google is trying to port all the GE features to the online map service

This would be so much better if the line tool actually gave distance measurements. Think about how much it would help with that running path somebody posted above.

Also, wouldn't it be cool to have the shape tool provide a surface area measurement? And take into account the earth's arc?

I love the new point placement tool though. I've always wanted to be able to click on a spot on the map, and get directions from or to there.

Overall a great product upgrade.

Jon M
<<Also, wouldn't it be cool to have the shape tool provide a surface area measurement? And take into account the earth's arc?>>

In GE the equator is not the same length as in reality. They are not good at taking the curve into account.

I'd like to see number and letter markers be added to the set you can use for placemarks. It would make directions and travel info much easier to include. The Googleplex demo is a good example of this – there are soooo many placemarks on that map it would be much easier to use if they were numbers or letters instead of the little blue markers.

I agree with Jenny Reiswig. Also they could have a little snippit of what it is when you hover over a PM

already pretty good, but with some additions could be fantastic:
*alphabetize/organize/sort the list. long lists get confusing, particularly when you continually add to them.
*allow html in the description
*use the markers as labels, with titles, and include the ability to turn some on and off, and to sort the list by them.
*measurement, both in distance and area
*embedding a map (and optionally, the list) into a web page

my map of Detroit theatres, a work in progress for those interested. (redford, at the end of the list, is the most complete at this point)
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&z=11&ll=42.359559,-83.097153&spn=0.35263,0.549316&t=h&om=1&msid=111893072419959702181.00000111c0170996083b3&msa=0

> *allow html in the description

Placemark descriptions already have HTML though (there's three links: "Plain text – Rich text – edith HTML"). Or do you mean the description of the map itself?

yes, the description of the map itself, i wasn't clear on that. currently it's useless as any kind of legend for the map, to explain what each marker is. html, or at the very least, line breaks, would help.

i agree with Jenny Reiswig and James Xuan – number/letter markers and rollover snippets of the title would be very helpful.

so after playing around with this feature i have a few questions.

1. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&om=1&z=3&msid=103763259662194171141.000001119b4ce1e8e0f76&msa=0
This is a map of the electoral votes with the states shaded in. How did the personmake the shapes? I'm pretty sure they didn't trace each states boundary. Did they use a KML file?

2. On the blog they said: "Your map automatically gets a public URL that you can share with your friends and family, or you can also publish your map for inclusion in Google Maps search results. We'll continue to show organic local search results with red pushpins; user-generated results will have blue pushpins."

does that mean if i search for "Elvis' Home" and some one has created a My Map of it, a search result with his home will show up on the map? How do I get "inclusion in Google Maps search results" ?

pri

RE: 1, Zoom in to the corner of of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. Doesn't look all that precise, may have been done manually.

One missing feature: Being able to search for businesses/listings within an area bounded by a shape you drew, like on AskCity. In there you can even draw a line down a street to search for places specifically on that street.

Here's mine:

http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF-8&msa=0&msid=102743082921439214474.00000111c2e7ad0a57b99&z=14&ll=43.661601,-79.390469&spn=0.026948,0.05785&om=1

I had fun making it. =Op

this is just soooo AWESOME.
its not only useful for the usually geographical stuff – you could write your entire biography using this (where you were born, where you have travelled to, where you lived, where you went to college, etc etc)

and it doesnt have to be about yourself – it'll be a great tool for the teaching of the geographical aspect of history.

Had to pull my map. Some guy said I robbed his idea. Anyway I can't find his one on Gugal Mapz so I'm regretting pulling it.

.

I have created the map of all the offices of GOOGLE in the world:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101555744172859669534.00000111c3409e5a70efc

If some offices are missing, please contact me (MidEast, Africa, ...)

Yep, I have to say, this is rather ho-hum. AskCity has had this functionality as least since last December, if not even earlier:
http://blog.ask.com/2006/12/askcity_gives_y.html

Now, what's impressive here is that Google's mapping resources get a lot more traffic, so while Google is only doing what Ask did many months ago, Google is making it work with a much higher server load.

And again, Ask recently improved their interface such that you could draw a shape, and then do a search for enties only within that shape. Google? What about that?

Even though G has higher traffic, Ask wins the round.

has any1 tried the "z" trick parameter change on their maps ?? Mine takes a value of 28 without giving me "no further zoom status" msg

Didn't even realize you could change the icons until I saw Jenny's map...!

Me either. @ TOMHTML Google Dublin should be entitled Google EMEA

Aaaarrrghhhh my @ didn't go red!!!1

I wish I could make My Maps with my friends. =Op Making one alone takes a long time and is not very fun.

> Aaaarrrghhhh my @ didn't go red!!!1

The @ only turns into an image (a red image) when the parser figures it might be an email address... like joeexample.com ... then, the image is used to obfuscate the address in order to battle spammers who might want to automatically harvest addresses from the web.

And the My Maps server is down

You share your maps and check out others at ongopongo.com

I don't know if this is new since My Maps rolled out, but I just noticed when doing a search on Google Maps the result now gives me the option to Save to My Maps, in addition to getting directions to and from there, Searching Nearby and Making this a default.

If you select Save to My Maps, there is a drop down of your existing maps and the option to create a new map.

I do wish they would give you the option to add to a Line. I haven't found a way to add to a line once you double click and complete it. It is very easy to drag and change the position of a line once it is drawn.

TonyB

Oh dear, I'm very demanding of Google. When they introduce something like this I just want more. At the moment, we're all missing stuff – distance calculations, extendable lines, formattable and reorderable lists of locations.

I'm bothered, as with Picasaweb but more so, that Public and Unlisted are the only options. I'd like to be able to stick my friends' addresses on a map so that I have a nice map of London with my friends' houses on; but for obvious reasons I don't want this to be in any way available to the world at large (my friends wouldn't like it either). What we really need is maps integration with a Contact Manager that allows you to see your contacts' land addresses on a (private!) map. I haven't looked into it, but the Spreadsheets API allows you to see addresses in a spreadsheet on a map; the problem, as I see it, is that the spreadsheet has to be public (is that right)?

Anyway, in the meantime, I'd love to be able to drag and drop the locations in the list on the left; and to be able to get Google to give you directions between location markers after you've put them in place, so that you can create a route – a walking tour, say – between locations you've marked.

I got google maps "my maps" integration with blogger now.
http://racingtrackmaps.blogspot.com/
View all NASCAR, Formula 1Circuits

I really really love this, but that you can't print your map including the markers seems pretty silly to me! I don't really want to install Google Earth in order to just print a map. I hope this gets solved in the next release.

So while it's a cool new feature, is there any way to stop the sidebar appearing? It used to go away when you searched for a place name, which meant the map took up the entire window.

Click on the small arrow from the right margin of the sidebar.

Hmm, I can't see the arrow you're talking about.

I'm liking My Maps a lot, and have been playing with it to make a map of London restaurants. I'm looking forward to more features (particularly being able to reorder/tart up the list of things on the left). But in the meantime there are two things that seem annoying to me:

1) It's very easy to drag a placemark into the wrong place by accident when you're zooming in and zooming out. I've put in a lot of my placemarks by doing a map search (say for "french restaurant covent garden"): the bubble comes up, I save it to My Maps; and hey presto I have my placemark. But then I move the map around and suddenly the restaurant has moved to Barnet. There should be a feature to make placemarks lockable.

2) Usability is let down by the fact that the map on the right displays only those placemarks that are shown in the list currently visible on the left. If you have a lot of placemarks, going over more than one page of results, then only some of them show up. This is a problem if you want to look at an area of town and see *every* restaurant you like in that area. This problem doesn't occur for sites that use the Google Maps API (like persistent.info's Overplot).

Anyway, it's still nice.

Ah, the arrow only appears in Firefox, not SeaMonkey or IceApe or IceWeasel. http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-How-Do-I/browse_thread/thread/aecef8d0ac19fe3e/bf6bbd3f7265bfe6 gives the solution of pasting javascript:gPanelResizer.togglePanel(); into the location bar.