Last week, Google announced the addition of satellite image data to their online map service. This is the first free access to the satellite image data Google acquired when they bought Keyhole Corp in late 2004.
In the spirit of remixing highlighted at this year’s eTech conference, within days a new type of map started showing up on Flickr. These memory maps, as they are known, are based on a combination of google satellite maps and Flickr’s ability to annotate images. They are created by first making making screen captures of an area of interest from a google satellite image, and then importing the image into Flicker and making notes about various locations visible in the image.
Many of the memory maps are of somewhat small areas, such as a college campus, etc. Given the lower resolution available for our part of the country, this approach doesn’t work well for me (else I would have marked up a detailed photo of Lindsborg, similar to this one). So I tried something different, on a larger scale, and made a capture showing a satellite view from Kanopolis to Lindsborg to Salina, and annotated that.
Below is a a screenshot of how the image looks on Flickr. Click on the image to see the active image at Flickr, where you can move your mouse over the different boxes to see the annotations. In addition, there are links to the over 200 other memory maps that have been created to date.
Here’s a direct link to the google map I used; it’s fun to explore by zooming in and out, and if you haven’t used google maps yet you’ll be amazed by how seamlessly you can navigate simply by clicking and dragging on the map.