Around the World in 40 Clicks

Once described by About's Marziah Karch as a "map of the world on steroids", Google Earth has allowed us to fly around the planet with a simple click of the mouse and zoom in on everything from the Eiffel Tower to our own street corner. The public has been very creative in finding various uses for the application such as illustrating weather forecasts, discovering ancient ruins, and even viewing celebrity homes inhabited by the likes of Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and others. The power of this revolutionary software is now making its way to the Web with the Google Earth Browser Plug-in.

Released yesterday, the plug-in gives you the ability to build your own 3D Google Earth applications which can in turn be embedded within your Web site. The possibilities are vast for developers, with a powerful JavaScript API that gives you the ability to manipulate the application in countless ways. "Our goal is to open up the entire core of Google Earth to developers in the hopes that you'll build the next great geo-based 3D application, and change (yet again), how we view the world." That was the sentiment issued by the plug-in's Technical Lead, Paul Rademacher, on Google's LatLong blog. The Google Earth Browser Plug-in currently supports Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on the Windows platform. It can be found on the Google Earth API site along with several other developer resources.