Google Maps Adds Mashups In MyMaps
Google Maps has added over 100 third party mashups to its MyMaps feature, letting you access some great mashups for additional information. Go to MyMaps and click Add Content, and you’ll be sent to this content directory, with a distance measuring tool, gas prices, real estate search, earthquake data, movie times, Chicago transit, Chicago crime, random facts, where to find parking in Taipei, Flickr photos, Wikipedia, area calculator, webcams, weather, and much more. Any website using Google Maps API can add their mashup to the directory, and Google is working on monetization so those mashups don’t lose money by not having the mashups on their site.
As Mashable points out, this is Google getting a little more like Facebook, hosting the Applications in their own website. It hasn’t worked out well for Facebook application developers, who pay a lot on bandwidth bills while making no money off their Facebook apps, but if Google can help mashup developers make real money, they’ll have the better platform.
Here’s a Google video on YouTube explaining the new feature:
