As rumored last week, Google Maps has released a feature that lets you easily embed a Google Map on any web page (see above, I hope) that would normally accept YouTube Videos or an iframe. Be prepared to see maps on even more pages as they are now very accessible.
It’s very simple to use. Create a map with directions or pictures. Click “Link to this page” in the top right corner and copy the HTML in the second block (like in the image to the left). Paste into the HTML of another webpage. They also have a customize option available that lets you change the dimensions. Google Maps Mania has a more complete walk-through of the process.
It is available in the following countries US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. It is available in the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Welsh, Faroese and Chinese (TW).
The feature is very cool, but not without its limitations. The first map I attempted to embed included a route to Burning Man and the Panoramio Mapplet. Other attempts that didn’t work include a map of traffic in the Seattle area and several other mapplet -routing combinations. I was able to get a MyMap-Mapplet combination working though. I didn’t see anywhere on the site that explains what is and isn’t embeddable content. The embed HTML box is just greyed out and there is text stating that “This map cannot be embedded” with a link to the top-level Google Maps support page.
I like that fact that they are marketing this as YouTube-Style maps. Almost anyone on the the net today will understand exactly what that means and how to use embed a map. As I mentioned last week, Google Maps already dominates on third-party websites; this will increase that margin substantially.
Update: Ecto, my blogging client, appears to have stripped out the iframe when I made my original post. I have added the embed map back to the post.