If the hotel network here at <a href=Where 2.0 were faster and there were fewer people on
it, I’d be downloading the
new version of Google Earth, released for the first time
simultaneously for Windows, Mac, and Linux! (Reportedly, the
universal binary screams on the Macbook Pro.) John Hanke’s demo
reminded me of just how powerful a platform Google Earth is
becoming. Google Maps has more public reach, but it seems to me
that Google Earth will ultimately emerge as the real platform
play.
What’s particularly interesting is how much activity there is in
adding user-generated data. Especially interesting is the way
that Google is trying to get users to build 3D models of buildings
with sketchup. Brad
Schell gave a great demo of how to visualize a building and place
it in Google Earth. Particularly impressive was the ability to
search for real-world architectural elements and add them to a
building you’re drawing. (AutoDesk, watch out….) Lovely.
It becomes clear that Google Earth is not just a data visualization
platform. It’s a framework on which hundreds of different data
layers can be anchored. It’s also clear that Google Earth is
entering into the same territory as Second Life. It’s so easy to
imagine all of the alpha geek behavior on Second Life hitting the
mainstream via people building real-world equivalents on Google Earth.
And it’s easy to imagine
interoperability, with virtual worlds adopting KML, so that
first and second life become interoperable and connected.
(I was going to ask about the Google Earth/Second Life
connection with sketchup as the connector, since it seems so
obvious to me, but the first question from the audience beat me
to it. It’s impossible to miss this idea.)
(Sketchup us now
available for mac as well!)
P.S. I posted too soon! Jerry Paffendorf of <a href=http://www.electricsheepcompany.comThe Electric Sheep Company is up on stage, talking about Second Life. He has a lovely formulation: people in Second Life are actually “living inside of a map.” And because that map is of a world that is somewhat simpler than the real world, and has a more limited population, it’s a great laboratory for figuring out problems and opportunities in location based services.
Jerry also talks about the fact that real world places have already been simulated in Second Life. There’s a virtual copy of Hanover, New Hampshire, for example. He also demos a mashup of Second Life and Google Maps, where a gateway to a Second Life location appears as a pushpin on a Google Map.
Real and virtual are definitely on a collision course. I’m hoping that we can get more interoperability between the two, so that the streams of innovation merge like hydrazine and liquid oxygen, fueling a rocket to the future.
P.P.S. Glenn Letham points out that Autodesk isn’t asleep at the switch. They just announced the Autodesk Civil 3D 2007 Extension for Google Earth, allowing civil engineers and surveyors to push their data to Google Earth. But I still think that what Google is doing with its sketchup components warehouse is amazing. I’d love to see Autodesk supporting export to Google Earth from their architectural design tools and component catalogs.