Google's taking over the world

We are all aware of the meteoric rise of the Google brand over the past decade. Since its conception it has become the most widely used search engine in the world and is worth a reputed $23 billion - not bad for a company which started in 1996 in a friend's garage.

In recent years they are literally starting to take over the world with the introduction of Google Maps. Through its release in early 2005, and the subsequent update with the version 2 API a year later, thousands of developers have been able to add their own functionality to maps for inclusion on other websites. These additions (known as 'mashups') provide the ability to add clear, stylish and accurate maps along with aerial imagery to a site, and developer's can overlay additional information using javascript.

Combining feeds from third parties and overlaying this information onto a Google map, has resulted in some ingenious mashups. Useful information such as current traffic problems on your way home and virtual sightseeing were among some of the original creations. Many of use feeds provided by other websites to visualise to the data such as Overplot, showing where photo's on Flickr were taken or up-to-date Earthquake information.

Now Google maps are used for a wide range of different applications such as a live sunset/sunrise tracker, a distance measurer and even racing games. According to Google, 50,000 mashups have now been produced by web developers and many of the best ones can be found here.

Google are rumoured to be introducing the option of embedding map's, making the process of adding a map to your site much easier. At the moment you are required to know a certain amount of javascript in order to implement a map. Should these rumours be true then I'm sure the uptake of Google map will be exponential in growth.

Maps are being introduced in many different countries where the relevant survey data is available but even in places where this information doesn't exist, Google are introducing new methods to gather data. In a similar way to Open Street Map, Google are using GPS to enable local's in India to gather data at a higher level on roads. This technology can then be used in countries where data is unavailable to map area's quickly and accurately.

Google is certainly well on its way to fulfilling another aspect of its mission statement to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" through Google maps and I'm sure that it will continue to be one of foremost products in Google's range.