Maps Just the Beginning at Where 2.0

"Think globally, act locally" takes on a new meaning as discussed at O'Reilly Media's inaugural Where 2.0 conference, being held this week in San Francisco.

Start by zooming around the free Google Earth applet that debuted today. You'll see high-resolution satellite images of major cities in the U.S. and Canada, and medium-resolution pictures of the rest of the world. Warning: Do not begin exploring with this program until you've got lots of free time.

Along with flying around the planet like a superhero, you can use the program to perform local searches for restaurants, parks, schools, and other points of interest, and to get driving directions. The program's "wow" factor is off the charts, but I was disappointed to find that huge sections of the country (including my home town near Detroit) aren't yet available in high resolution, so zooming in soon resembles a Kandinsky print. Of course, at that price, whatya got to complain about?

Google Earth wasn't the show's only example of the magic that comes from mixing maps and data. David Rumsey, author of the recently published Cartographica Extraordinaire, demonstrated how historical maps can be integrated with their modern digital counterparts to give them a third dimension and other attributes.

If you've ever wondered what Presidential candidates your neighbors supported in the 2004 election, check out Eyebeam's FundRaiser 2004, which shows contributions by county for each party. The site's Neighbor Search lets you enter a name or address to see who gave what to whom. And Paul Rademacher's housingmaps.com combines rental listings on Craigslist.org with Google Maps to pinpoint the location of rental properties.

(If you're having trouble accessing the new feature, here's some info. The Google Earth team has posted a note saying: "Thanks for your interest in Google Earth, but we're sorry we can't offer you a download right now. As you know, Google Earth is in beta, and we're still building out our ability to take on new users. We're making good progress, and expect to be able to accept new downloads shortly, so we recommend you check back daily here. We hope to be able to welcome you and other new planet surfers soon.")

Photographs of the Where 2.0 proceedings are available at flickr.com.