Earlier this week, there was a ton of chatter (see 1, 2 or 3) about Google’s latest project, Google Maps. Much of it focused, unsurprisingly, on the performance of the application itself which is – in true Google fashion – very impressive. Blake Ross from the Firefox team linked to this entry which deconstructs some of the behind the scenes application design.
But all of that fancy web design – as important as it is – is playing second fiddle for me when compared to the really important thing Google’s done here: broken down some of the real, significant barriers between highly disparate and non-related information sets. What do I mean? Consider Anil Dash’s post here, wherein he uses Google Maps to discover Typepad users near NYC and dog lovers in Peoria, IL. Google has with its new project begun to marry and relate maps with other information from its index – to geolocate searchable date, in essence. That, IMO, is a big deal.
Google Maps may also provide some further context for some of the database issues that Adam Bosworth talked about here and on the Gillmor Gang here.
In any event, I consider Google Maps to be the first of many likely marriages between indexed information and other information that increases its value, such as location data. It’d be interesting, for example, to see them begin explicitly calling out available services by location, much as I talked about here. I’d sure be pleased with a map that showed me not only routes, but Wifi enabled hotspots off the highway where I could grab some gas and check my email.
So kudos to the DHTML wizards, as usual, but bigger props to the folks doing the heavy lifting to solve the problems that Adam had mentioned previously. That’s what impresses me the most.
