Google is continuing the integration of its web services into Google Earth. On the same day that they announced their embeddable maps, they have announced that you can turn on the book layer in Google Earth. They have also added live traffic data to the service. This type of integration makes me wonder how long til Google Earth becomes a full web browser or a plugin to some other browser.
As they say on the Google’s LatLong blog:
Now when you turn on the “Google Book Search” layer in Google Earth (found in the “Featured Content” folder in the “Layers” menu), you’ll see small book icons scattered around the globe. When you click on one of the book icons, a pop-up balloon will display a snippet of text from one of Book Search’s public domain books that references that location. You’ll also find links to the Google Book Search page for that snippet so that you can learn more about what it has to say about the city or town.
For example, let’s say that you’re interested in Detroit, Michigan. After flying there in Google Earth, you’ll find that one of the book icons is for “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson.” Clicking on the book icon brings up the pop-up balloon with the following text snippet:
“With respect to the unfor-tunate loss of Detroit and our army, I with pleasure see the animation it has inspired through our whole country, …”
Google has been exposing its geoparsing capabilities in Google Book Search. As you can see in this map of “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson“:
Yahoo! has been exposing its geoparsing capabilities in Pipes. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Google and Yahoo! will soon be releasing a geoparsing API.