Okay, so Google is not exactly known for rocking the “visually pretty” side of things, right? I know this is something I’ve complained about before, but I just can’t understand why a company with as much money and smarts and resources as Google can’t seem to get their shit together on the design side of…
Imagine you’re walking down the street and a little yellow envelope appears on your phone. Surprise! You have a message waiting for you four blocks south at Starbucks, it reads. Your mission: get to that Starbucks and get said message.
Read more on HangMessage – Location Based Social Networking And Messaging App…
This is a new location-based social shopping app that is Twitter-powered. It has two main functions.
First, it allows you to share photos on finds that you make, right when you make them. Second, you can share tweets about these very same finds on the spot.
The idea is to let users go shopping and collectively discover where the best bargains and deals are, ten share them with other Twitterers.
On the other hand, if you own an online store you can license it through the site and make it even more accessible to the buying public. That is, using the provided white label version you can send a tweet and/or a Facebook message to the friends of any customer who makes a purchase.
It is clear that Justbought.it aims to change the way that people shop. Theoretically speaking, it makes possible for anybody to receive feedback both from his friends and followers – before and after shopping, for comparison purposes and banter. Girls are known to be keen on the latter, of course.
360cities.net is the world’s most complete collection of beautiful high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic photographs.
This interesting website gives you all the information you need to get in order to know more about this company’s services.
On this site you will have the chance to find more than 15,000 panoramic images, from over 150 cities. All these photos are geo-coded on to Google Maps, and also featured as a default layer (Preview / Gallery) on Google Earth.
All the content you will find on this website is contributed by a network of skilled virtual reality (VR) photographers from all around the world. 360cities.net was created in order to reach photography enthusiasts, as well as tourists, and those involved in the tourist industry.
If you need more information about the content, as well as traffic, and membership, you will get all the information you need on the webpage. The site has an interesting combination of online mapping, with digital photography, bandwidth, and storage. This combination has made an endeavor like this possible only recently.
This website gives you the chance to get imagines from a panoramic photographer in every town in the world. The applications for commerce, real estate, industry, education, geography, tourism, retail, documentary work, and journalism are endless. 
Read more on 360Cities – Panoramic Photography Of The World…
29Travels is a new site that is geared towards those who have an active liking for travelling, and wish to put across where it was they went to in a digital fashion. That is, this new service could be compared to a mashup that lets anybody come up with a personalized map that can be easily embedded wherever the user wishes.
The process is quite simple: the user has to select the map size and pick a color for the visited country or countries, and then select the regions he has visited from the list that is provided. There are no fees to be paid, and you don’t have to register either. You must, however, procure a browser plugin that is available from Google. This plugin is (for the time being) available only to Windows OS users.
As you can see, this service plays out a very concise role, and while it offers nothing really groundbreaking it is a viable way of sprucing up your profile page or blog. See it in action for yourself at www.29.travels.com and see where it stands for you.
It’s a free site that is very effective in order to localize anybody you need in all over the world. The good thing about this tool is the fact that when you register, you have access to a solution that will let your friends and relatives as well as any team you are part of, to know the exact position you were at the moment you sent the a message.
The system works by using your cell phone to send SMSs and after you do this, your position will be instantly shown on Google maps, and everybody can follow your trip and read your messages. There is a company’s number where to send the messages and the privacy of your information is one of the main concerns for the professionals working at YouPosition.It
Other very catchy thing about this solution is that where at any part of the world you can also upload pictures to this system. You can easily find other similar sites, but the key point about youposition.it is that it’s very easy to use. If you can send an SMS, then you can also use this app.
eMapia.com is a location based marketplace that is designed to make shopping an easy experience.
The site uses Google Maps technology to enable sellers (businesses or individuals) to add their items and link them to locations they desire, which is normally where the shop or house is located.
Registering at eMapia is totally free and you can add up to 5 items. This service allows people to conveniently look for items in locations that are in their area and decide where to buy them from. The goal of the site is to change the way that people search for stuff when buying online.
eMapia is not an auction based marketplace. You simply put your items at prices you like and people will email or call you when they want to buy your products, and you can either choose to meet them or use Darrb.com (eMapia’s sister company) for the delivery.
With Paintmap, you can get to know the world through paintings. Think Panoramio, except instead of panoramas, there are paintings.
Basically, PaintMap has geolocated works of art throughout the world, allowing users to globetrot via famous and not so famous pieces of art. Paintings are generally real world objects rendered in oil and water colors. Users visiting the site are able to learn more about the artistic activities in an area represented by a painting, and they get a more creative view on geography. Users can search by typing in a place name or location; alternatively they can click on the map or browse through highlighted entries on the homepage. Each painting is open to comment and description. Under each painting blurb you’ll also be able to see if the painting is for sale or not, and who created it using what medium. If you’re an artist, uploading your own painting is free.
Read more on PaintMap.com – Exploring the World Through Art…
Say you’re new to town or just on vacation and have no idea where to go—where to eat, what to do, where to find the cheapest deals, etc. If you’ve got Wikinear, you don’t have to do any research.
It’ll do it for you. Wikinear combines Wikipedia with Yahoo’s new Fire Eagle service, Oauth, a service for secure, private access and GoogleMaps to locate where you are. Once located, it displays the five nearest destination spots from Wikipedia. It was designed for use with your mobile so that wherever you go, you’ll be informed without having to hit a guidebook, internet shop or even a local. The service is currently only in private beta so the site is pretty bare and usable only if you’re luck enough to get an invite. It works with FireEagle, so you’ll need an account there as well.
Read more on WikiNear.com – Mobile Site-seeing with Wikipedia…
Finding yourself heading to super discounted food outlets, combing through coupons, and generally not eating so much? These are hard times for folks on a limited budget and food prices aren’t helping. MetroSeeq aims to help alleviate some of the economic hurt with a website that does the coupon clipping for you .
MetroSeeq is a new site that combines a search engine with Google Maps to help you find sales, deals, coupons and ways to save a buck or two when it comes to food, restaurants, and groceries in your area. There’s two ways to search: Proximity and Deal Search. The latter lets you find coupons on a movable, scalable Google map. It works for all cities nationwide. The former, Proximity Search helps you find businesses closest to you and en route to a certain destination making your commute more manageable and efficient.
Glotter allows you to use Google maps to create maps displaying various types of data that you can share with the online community. Maps are categorized into travel and places (the Louvre), knowledge (NASA headquarters and centers), leisure and sports (the Beijing Olympic Games 2008), and entertainment and fun (the spot of five people waiting for the Applie iPhone 3G to come out in New York City who are trying to make a Guinness World Record for “the longest time waiting in line to buy something”).
There is also a tab full of useful services to help you arrange and set up your map. These include a site to get driving directions, Google Earth, Geocoder, the street viewer for 360 degree street level photos, images of what’s in space, and more. You can also add extras such as a YouTube video or a Flickr photo stream to buff up your map. If you just want to make a personal map for you and your friends to use, that is also a possibility. So if you want to create a content rich map, or just want to browse through the most popular ones that have been posted by the community, check out Glotter.
NJherald.com is the way to go to gather all the information and local news you might need to get around Northwest New Jersey.
The site covers all the standard areas for a local daily: weather, sports, community life, local economy, state news. While the site’s outlook is very much in consonance to that unsaid tenet of web design whereby local news sites have to look dull and boring, it presents some interesting features, like the interactive garage sale finder, which lets users post a classified advertising of their events and users find them on a Google map, or search by keyword, location or opening day. No videos are featured, but image galleries are extensive, can be watched as slideshows, individual shots bookmarked to personalized photo albums (registration required), or ordered for printing. Note that the news and contents available through NJherald.com are only highlights from the print edition, to which you can subscribe directly online; RSS subscription features are also available, but for the whole site and not for individual categories/sections, a problem they will hopefully solve in the near future. 
Read more on NJherald.com – New Jersey Herald – Stay Connected…
Startups are nothing new, nor or they confined to the insulated walls of Silicon Valley. Today, they have a global reach from Bulgaria to Australia to Baltimore.
If you’ve ever wondered what the global startup spread looked like exactly, you might want to have look at StartupWarrior. Startup Warrior is a mashup of Google Maps and Crunchbase, the TechCrunch made database of technology companies. You’d be surprised how many startup hubs there actually are. There might be one in your neighborhood. It’s a good way to scope for jobs or decide whether to start your own tech company. If you want you’re startup on the map, simply update it on Crunchbase. The Startup Warrior index is refreshed weekly.
Read more on StartupWarrior.com – Where are All the Startups?…
Google Maps are pretty fab and all, but haven’t you ever wished there were more color, more flash and more leeway to add doodles? The maps are primed for it and now, with QuickMaps, you can draw to your heart’s content on top of G-map of your choice (the Earth, stars, moon and Mars) . You can add markers (and captions) and once you’ve complete your work, the map with all your added extras can be saved in your account.
You’ll also be able to add your map to any website or blog and share it with pals. Each map may be accompanied by your own description and title; you can also import elements from another Quikmap, or from a KML or GPX file from the web or your computer.
Are you into car driving video games? Would you like to play a free 2D driving simulation game online? If that is so, you might want to visit Geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorGM and use this free simulation video game. By Playing Geo Quake you can get maps and directions since this game is powered by Google Maps.
To use this car simulation video game you just need to enter Geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorGM, no subscription or membership is needed. Notice that this Google simulator helps you find streets and places by simply moving the vehicle where you want to. So, if you want to play a game and get maps and directions at the same time this seems to be the right site for you to visit.
As a conclusion, if you want to play a car simulation video game you can enter Geoquake.jp/en/webgame/DrivingSimulatorGM and play a Google simulator to have fun and get maps and directions for free.
You may have heard of Plazes a new social web-on-the-go site where you can share your whereabouts with your favorite friends and family. So if you’re in need of a pick me up after work, connect to Plazes and let them know you want to go out.
All your contacts can respond if and when they’ll meet you. You can check out their locations in real time too. Now there’s a new desktop client for Plazes called Klinkr created by a group of “five guys and a girl”. Klinkr uses the Adobe Air Platform and has a number of useful features. You can access all of your Plazes contacts on your desktop and see where they are and what they’re doing via Google Maps. It also utilizes Intelligent Clearing so you can see where you are in relation to your friends. And it works on PC and Macs. It’s free too.
Do you have an extra $23 lying around? How about putting it towards a prime piece of Manhattan real estate? Roofarena sells rooftop properties- virtually, that is. The site has taken a Google map of Manhattan, and sells members the “building”; a square in the shape of the roof where buyers can put an advertisement, a family photo, or anything else they want to display.
Recent sales have cost between $19 and $50, and available plots are clearly demarcated with a “sale” sign on the site. Potential buyers can also test out their space for free before buying, although they always run the risk of someone else swooping in to take the property.
Read more on Roofarena.com – Buy Your Own (Virtual) NYC Rooftop…
Panedia.com is a content creation and licensing company that specializes in high-quality, geo-referenced panoramic photography.
Currently, the site offers photography of locations in Australia (where the company is based) and San Francisco, but it plans to cover more areas soon. The name “Panedia” is a compound of the words ‘panoramic’ and ‘encyclopedia,’ which the site says reflects its goal of creating “a professionally produced visual reference and archive of our changing world.” All imagery featured on Panedia.com are shot by professional photographers. The site offers 360-degree images of “amazing places,” as well as over 3,500 panoramic tours that you can navigate alongside the corresponding Google Map. For $25 per year, you can download any of the site’s images to use as desktop wallpapers.
Read more on Panedia.com – Panoramic Photographs and Virtual Tours…
For a six week period, Penguin Books, the British publishing giant, is redefining the world of literature. This project abandons the traditional channel through which readers experience a book (a printed manuscript) and instead features stories in a variety of web 2.
0 formats- Google Maps, LiveJournal, and Twitter, among others TBD. The venture features six authors and six stories in six weeks. In addition, there will be a secret seventh featured story that will have clues spread throughout the web, that readers will have the opportunity to follow, and through detective work help a “lost” girl (as well as to receive prizes from Penguin).
Read more on Wetellstories.co.uk – Six Stories, Told Online…
zKimmer takes Google Maps technology and rather than using map graphics as you’d usually see, it maps out publication graphics, i.e magazine photos, pictures, spreads, and covers.
So what you get is a charted out magazine, in tiles, on top of the Google Maps interface. Navigation is achieved using the controls on the left hand side. You can zoom in and out by clicking, or simply use the zoom slider for incremental zooming. The arrow keys are used for moving up and down by row, and left to right. zKimmer pages can be incorporated in links in emails, blogs, and webpages; you can also open up a link to a specific place on a specific page. There’s nothing to install or download and it works across browsers.
