Google spies ad gold with Maps

Google spies ad gold with Maps
July 11, 2004
The Age Newspaper - Australia

Google isn't one to take its eye off a lucrative advertising opportunity when it spies one - especially when that opportunity has global implications. And that's exactly what the online information search giant sees in its satellite mapping browser, Google Maps.

Google launched the feature in February, letting web surfers pull up maps and satellite images of virtually any neighbourhood in America. Unlike services from MapQuest.com and Yahoo that are limited to presenting information authorised by the portal - such as locations of pizza shops or bank machines - Google Maps let people plug in their own data.

Users quickly rolled out what became dubbed "Google mash-ups," using lists of apartments for rent and petrol prices to create services that let web users instantly generate maps of the closest cheap gas or pricey apartments.

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