14 DAY TRIAL // Using Google Maps, or Google Earth for that matter, can be a lot of fun, but there's certainly a utilitarian side to it. Recently Google has greatly expanded the usefulness of Maps by adding Place Pages, entries for many interesting and important places around the world filled with information, photos and other content. The feature is still in the early stages, but Google eventually wants to have a Page for every “place” on Earth. But information isn't of a lot of use without a way of accessing it, so Google has now made it possible to view Place Pages inside Google Earth, allowing users to also learn things as they’re exploring our planet in 3D.
“When I'm exploring my neighborhood or planning a trip, I often find places I want to know more about. That's why I love using Place Pages for Google Maps to see lots of great information about a place on a single page,” Matt Holden, associate product manager, Google Earth Team writes.
“Starting today, you can see the same rich Place Page content in Google Earth, while browsing the world in 3D. You can see a summary whenever you click on a business or place of interest, and then click the View more information » link if you'd like to see more.”
The Places layer is enabled by default if you have the Geographic Web layer active. There are a lot of places already available through the tool, but it can hardly be called comprehensive and it may be a while before Google can claim this. Still, for the ones that the data is available it's an interesting option. The Places Page features a description of the location, courtesy of Wikipedia, reviews if it's a restaurant or hotel, work hours, photos and a lot of other information.
Places information will show up as blue squares which bring up a pop-up overlay when clicked. Most of the information from the Place Page will be available in the pop up and you can even expand the photos section to view the ones that are available in places like Panoramio. However, the photos themselves open up in the browser. You can also go to the Page itself by clicking on the name of the location.
Google Earth for Windows is available for download here.
