Grantastic Designs’ Blog

At the end of the Search Marketing Expo Local Mobile keynote on October 1, Google Chief Technologist of Google Local, Google Maps, and Google Earth – Michael Jones demonstrated a bunch of 3-dimensional and panoramic models of how Google maps has worked with the masses of user generated content to create new “worlds” from a hyper-local scale to global scale. Michael expanded further by showing slides of how content could be mapped on a galactic scale:

“Everywhere its black there in the stars, you’ll have the hubble telescope focus in on that area, and you can actually see 50,000 galaxies in that area.” Mike said. “These galaxies have billions of stars in them. Maybe one of them has people that do search engine optimization.” That provoked some laughter from the crowd.

What made Michael’s keynote particularly enjoyable was his last slide, which showed a clip from the televsions cartoon series “The Simpsons.” The clip showed Marge Simpson on their home computer, doing a search for her house on Google Earth, and turning up an amusing result – Marge zooms in to her house and finds her husband Homer in the back yard, sunbathing nude.

Now the example wasn’t meant to be realistic, as what it was really simulating was live video via satellite. (I guess in the animated world of the Simpsons they have more advanced technology than ours, as well as less privacy.) It was also a bummer to find out that the video no longer exists online, since it was removed from YouTube after a copyright infringement claim was filed by 20th Century Fox Films. (I wonder if Google could have demanded that Fox Films remove the clip of Google Maps from the Simpsons episode in retaliation?)

I guess Fox Films doesn’t have a legal team versed in Spanish, or at least Google sites other than YouTube, because you can still catch the video here as well as other Spanish-language websites (Ha ha, take that, evil corporate behmoth!)

I actually remembered the original Simpson cartoon clip, and right then it made me think: Couldn’t Google also include in their online map inventory, the many “virtual worlds” that have large fan bases and user bases, both of past and present creations of literature, gaming, and community, along with internet-based worlds? Here are just a couple of examples that spring to my mind:

• Second Life. Its an active, ever-growing internet-based virtual world in 3-D, but with real-time residents.
• The Simpsons town of Springfield. The official Simpsons Movie website disappoints with a “tour Springfield” slideshow of town landmarks. Why not make this a panoramic map with real context and landmarks for every point, including the Simpsons’ own house?

The ideal Google Map – Matching the virtual world with the real world

Interestingly enough, the ideal virtual mapping scenario doesn’t come from Google Maps, but from video game platforms. Take the Microsoft Xbox 360 game, Test Drive Unlimited. Ttransforms the open roads of Hawaii into a gaming lobby, where you can pass by potential opponents on the road. You can virtually “drive” through every road on Oahu as it exists. Imagine if Google could work with 3-D modelers in every town in every city in every state, and do a virtual 3-D animation interconnecting them all – sort of a 21st century version of the 19th century railroad?

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.