Street View in the Top End

We're always working to include more Australian locations in Street View. Last week, we added many new streets in Darwin, Geelong and remote parts of the Northern Territory.

With more of the Top End now in Street View, I decided to do a bit of research about the Baz Luhrmann movie Australia, and check out some familiar scenes from the movie in Street View and Google Maps.

Of course, with Kakadu now in Street View, the iconic Australia's outback is now on show for all to see:


View Larger Map

(As you may know, the Kimberley region of WA was the actual filming location for many scenes in the movie - I came across this great Google Maps mashup that Tourism WA has made, showing satellite images of where 'Faraway Downs' and other outback locations were filmed).

While we now have large parts of Darwin visible, the real shooting location for Darwin for the movie was the town of Bowen in Queensland. Recognise these shots?

The main pub, the Territory Hotel, in Darwin (aka GrandView Hotel, Bowen):


View Larger Map


Customs House, Bowen where Bryan Brown's character is seen frequently:


View Larger Map

The police station in Darwin (this is a facade on 2 units in Bowen that the Street View cars photographed):


View Larger Map

Lots of Australians are using Street View to check out their holiday destinations before arriving. As 2009 winds down and we enter summer,  I hope you continue to enjoy your Street View exploring (and movie watching)!

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Read More Here...

Bringing Maps to our Pacific neighbours

We're pleased to announce the launch of Google Map Maker for 43 new countries and territories, including our Oceania neighbours in Fiji, Palau and Midway. Map Maker now allows people to create complete maps for most of Oceania, from Papua New Guinea to Samoa and Micronesia, bringing the total to 164 countries across the world. 

Map Maker is all about making local data rich, complete and vibrant. Just take a look at how our users transformed the map of Da Lat, Vietnam in this time lapse video.



We hope that one day, people around the world will have access to high quality maps of their home country, whether that be here in Australia or thousands of kilometres away in Vanuatu. If you want to help by sharing your local knowledge about a favourite destination in Oceania (or anywhere else), go to mapmaker.google.com and start mapping.

Posted by Jori Pearsall, Geo Marketing Manager

Read More Here...

The Government is blogging

A few days ago, the Australian Government embarked on an e-government initiative - online policy consultation to "improve the processes for e-democracy in Australia". The Government has announced an online consultation on the future of Australia's digital economy through the Digital Economy Blog.

We think it's great that the Australian Government is taking steps to engage online with all Australians in an open, interactive way. Online consultation and blogging is something that Australian users and businesses have been doing for a while and it's good to see the Government getting in on the act.

We recently posted to the blog in response to the Open Access to Public Sector Information topic, setting out our views on the types of public sector information that should be made available.

In addition, we're pleased that the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy's YouTube channel also showcases some videos of the Minister's addresses to the Digital Economy Forum earlier this year. There's a whole range of politicians using channels like YouTube to communicate with Australians - including the Prime Minister, the Premier of Victoria, the Leader of the Opposition to name just a few.

Check out the Digital Economy Blog and have your say.

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs

Read More Here...

Your blog, your data

Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we've rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

• Merge two or more blogs into one. Have a few scattered blogs and want to get a fresh start? Now you can combine comments and posts from multiple blogs into a brand new blog.
• Move individual posts from blog to blog. Cross-publish your posts on multiple blogs, or transfer large batches of posts from one blog to another with a single click.
• Back up your blog to your own storage. It's never a bad idea to create backup copies of your own content, and now you can easily export an archival copy of your blog to your hard drive with a simple tool.
  
• Move your blog somewhere else. Our standard Atom XML export format will open up new blogging channels between providers, and let you take your content with you should you decide to move somewhere else. And of course, if you decide to come back to Blogger, importing your export file will get you back up and running in seconds.

You can access Import and Export from the Blog Tools section on the Settings | Basic tab.

We have also added new importing options to the blog creation process:

For some more detailed info on all of the things you can do with Import and Export, please check out our accompanying help article.

A couple caveats

• Currently we only support importing Blogger blogs. We don't yet support importing from WordPress, Typepad, LiveJournal or any other blogging platforms.
  
• Before importing a blog for the first time, we recommend that you create a new, throwaway blog to import into so you get a sense for how the process works. Once you’re comfortable, import into your public blog.
• If you have enabled a content warning for your blog, then you will have to remove it before your blog can be exported.

Read More Here...

iLike: Add a soundtrack to your blog

Sometimes we stumble across gadgets that are just too cool to keep to ourselves. And such is the case with the slick iLike gadget, which should be a real treat for all of you Blogger audiophiles out there.

iLike brings music to your blog by letting you embed and share playlists that you make yourself. Using their simple interface, you can organize and arrange your tunes, then seamlessly integrate them into your blog's sidebar.


To get started, head on over to the playlist editor and build up your list of tunes from the iLike database. When you are finished, simply click the orange 'Done!' button at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to a preview of what your playlist will look like on Blogger.

If everything looks good, click the orange 'Add to Blogger' button to go to Blogger's Import Page Element Page (if not already signed in you will be prompted to do so.) Then choose the blog which you want to have the playlist, and click 'Add Widget.'

The iLike gadget will now show up in your blog's page elements editor for you to arrange as you wish. Pretty cool, eh?

Keep in mind though that playlist editor feature of iLike is still technically in beta, so the usual caveats apply. However, if you are feeling extra entrepreneurial you could help out the iLike dev team by answering their quick survey.

Read More Here...

Street View now in New Zealand

Heading to New Zealand over the summer holidays? Planning your trip just got easier with the launch today of Street View in New Zealand.

Covering most of the country, including all major CBDs and many remote wilderness locations, Street View showcases spectacular New Zealand destinations from within Google Maps. Just like Street View in Australia, it allows you to view and navigate 360 degree imagery of New Zealand's streets and towns, and lets you pan and zoom to change your viewpoint.

You can use it to check out restaurants before you make your booking, preview your beach front accommodation, or just enjoy the geography of the country's sub-tropical north or mountainous south.


View Larger Map

New Zealand becomes the seventh country in the world to get Street View - it's also available in Spain, France, Italy, the US, Japan, and of course Australia.

Tourism New Zealand has selected a gallery of Street View images, that highlight some of New Zealand's best tourist attractions and locations to the world, including Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, and the historic Stone Store in Kerikeri. As Tourism NZ chief executive George Hickton puts it, the more that visitors research their holiday before they come, the more enjoyable an experience they have.

If you're heading over the ditch to visit relatives for Christmas, or for a getaway later next year, take a look around with Street View before you leave and really get the most out of your trip.

Posted by Andrew Foster, Product Manager

Read More Here...