Groundspeak unveiled the new Google Earth networking function on waymarking.com this week and it seems like it will be a fun new addition to the features on the Website. Not being a techie-type person, I'm still mucking around, trying to figure out what I'm doing. At this point I haven't found a way that it can make my life any easier, however, it is fun to look around at where a category's waymarks are located.
I did notice that I had typed in the coordinates of one of my "Musician Statue" waymarks wrong when I submitted it which showed the statue of classical composer, Grieg, somewhere out in the middle of the Cascade mountains rather than in the middle of the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Nice to get that fixed as there's a geocacher that checks the coordinates of many of my waymarks and emails me whenever he finds a mistake. I don't even know the guy, so it's a little creepy.
Anyhow, I think that the Google Earth feature will at first be just a fun addition, but as it is refined will become a useful tool. I'm looking forward to the day when you can waymark along a route - a feature available on geocaching.com. Of course, there may be some amazingly helpful feature to Google Earth that I'm missing. I mean, we're over a month into the new updated search functions and I'm still figuring out how to use them to their full capability. I'd love to hear how you guys are using Google Earth, so send some comments as to how you are incorporating this new update into your waymarking routine.
PS: How often are the photos on Google Earth updated? I looked at the Seattle Sculpture Garden arial and in the pic it showed it before construction started. The shot of my neighborhood is at least 8 years old. Call me an airhead, but I thought this was live - you know, like you could catch a guy picking his nose or something?!
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5 comments:
I think the google earth satellite photos are the same as the ones used for maps.google.com...and I think they're 4-5 years old in most cases.
That's just my opinion formed from the stuff around here where I live...
My area seems to have been updated somewhat recently. It looks like the photos are only about 3-4 years old. One interesting thing I've noticed is that there is a split, just north of my home here in Delaware, OH, where some pics were taken in the winter, and some in the summer. This causes the areas photographed in the winter to look like some sort of toxic wasteland, or something.
By the way, I wanted to also say thanks or the Waymarking guide. I just used it to help me setup a group, and it worked flawlessly. I'll also be referring to it when the officers get added, and it comes time to setup the category. Great reference and extremely useful.
I only know how old the pic for our area is because we bought our house 7 years ago and when we bought it about half of what is shown as lawn on the google pic was planting beds. And we've taken even more grass out. Also there was a different deck on the house which even predates the previous owners. So I figure the pic is about 9 years old.
I'm so glad that the category creation guide was helpful, Mr. O. Not many people know about it, so I wasn't sure if anyone had tested it out yet.
I'm using your category creation guide right now.
You should update it to comply with the new waymarking.com formatting. On the 2nd paragraph of page 1, just click on Groups at the top right instead of "My Groups". I couldn't find "My Groups anywhere on the right hand side of the page anywhere. I only could get to this page if I clicked on Groupd at the very top right hand side of the page.
Yeah, Google Earth is great. I use it for all of my historical marker searches. You can search by address, and it gives you a mark. Then I use that as a basis of where to look for my markers. Then I load all of them in Google earth and plan my route of attack for the day.
Thanks for the heads up on the "my groups" link. I wrote the guide right as the update occured. Some of the changes I fixed, but I figured I must have missed a couple. I'll change it, but it will likely be post-vacation as we're about to hit the road on a waymarking road trip for a few weeks. Another thing for my "to-do" list. :)
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