Google Maps Guide to Beautiful Stockholm

Google Places' business photo shoots allows businesses to request an indoor Street View shoot of their premises. Once the imagery is captured and added to Google Places it allows potential customers to take a virtual tour of the business using the Google Maps Street View technology.

If Google are looking to see how they can best implement business Street Views with Google Maps they could do worse than check out CityFinder Stockholm. CityFinder is a Google Map of Stockholm's places of interest and attractions such as hotels, cafes, museums, and much much more.

The map includes more than 1000 360 degree panoramic virtual tours of cafes, restaurants, malls, parks, gyms, beaches, museums and nightclubs in the city. The map provides a great guide to the city and an invaluable aide to visitors.

If you are looking for a hotel in Stockholm you can use CityFinder to actually view hotel rooms before you book. Or if you are heading out for a meal then you can check out the ambience of restaurants before booking a table.

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Swedish Travel Tips with Google Map

ReseEkonomen

This Swedish language Google Map provides advice and tips about the favourite tourist destinations of the Swedish around the world.

As well as providing travel tips from Mattias Varén the map also shows tips sent in by users. The yellow markers on the map indicate tips provided by Mattias and the green markers are those sent in by users of the map.

It is possible to filter the travel tips shown on the map by country and by type of holiday destination. The categories include, Family Travel, Weekend, Backpacking, Cruises and Adventure.

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More Sweden on Google Maps

Mere Sverige

Mere Sverige (More Sweden) is a tourism promotion site for Sweden aimed at the Danish market. The site is therefore in Danish. More Sweden uses Google Maps to provide Danish visitors to Sweden with all the accommodation and sightseeing information that they will need.

The map includes some very nice features. In particular the numbered marker clustering solution is well thought out. Numbered markers show the number of points of information at a location. If you mouse-over the marker a small information window opens with preview thumbnails of the individual locations. If you click on the marker the map zooms in so that you can view the individual markers.

Markers on the map are divided into the categories of 'experiences, 'accommodation' and 'transport' and each of these categories is further subdivided. For example 'accommodation' contains sub-categories of hotels, B&B's etc.

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Wage Negotiations with Google Maps

Mitt Mått

During the next year a new period of negotiations for a collective wage agreement will take place in Sweden. This Google Map from Almega, a Swedish employers' organisation is designed to raise the debate about wages and how people think work should be valued.

Anybody can share their opinions and experiences of wage negotiations with the website and they will appear on the map. Users can also take a simple test which will show which of four criteria – experience, development, engagement or achievement – is valued the most. Users can also share stories about the wage negotiation process.

Each test result and story is added as a marker on the map depending on where the user lives. There is also the possibility of commenting on other user's test results or stories.

The map is the creation of StoryLabs and Sthlm Connection. Sthlm Connection are writing a series of posts on how they created the map. There are three tutorials, the first of which is Creative Google Maps I: Taking control of the location.

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Visit Sweden Adds Street View

Visit Sweden

Visit Sweden, Sweden's official website for tourism and travel information, has been using Google Maps for many years to help visitors to the country discover the many interesting places to visit. This week's release of Street View imagery for the country means that Visit Sweden can now also provide Street View imagery on their maps.

Visit Sweden has created Google Maps for each of Sweden's main regions. The maps each have a number of layers that can be viewed. The layers include Culture, Family vacation, Nature experiences, Outdoor activities, Gastronomy, Coastline experiences, Wellness, Design and Airports.

Now, when a point of interest has a Street View image available, a 'Street View' button appears in the top right of the information window. Clicking on the button will display the Street View inside the information window.

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Street View Comes to Sweden and Denmark

Thanks to a heads up from Street View Gallery (who heard a rumour Street View was to be released tomorrow in Sweden) I have just noticed that Street View imagery is already live in Sweden and Denmark.

As well as Sweden and Denmark there seems to be more Street View imagery added to countries already covered. For example in the UK it seems that many National Trust properties now have Street View. Check out Stowe House, Nymans Gardens, Glendurgan Garden, Castle Drogo and Corfe Castle.


Corfe Castle


Storkyrkan, Stockholm


Nyhavn, Denmark


Frederiks Kirke, Copenhagen


Københavns Kommune


Oresund Bridge


Riddarhuset, Stockholm


Turning Torso, Malmo

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More Sweden on Google Maps

Mere Sverige

Mere Sverige (More Sweden) is a tourism promotion site for Sweden aimed at the Danish market. The site is therefore in Danish. More Sweden uses Google Maps to provide Danish visitors to Sweden with all the accommodation and sightseeing information that they will need.

Markers on the map are divided into the categories of 'experiences, 'accommodation' and 'transport' and each of these categories is further subdivided. For example 'accommodation' contains sub-categories of hotels, B&B's etc. You can choose to view any category of marker on the map. Clicking on a map marker opens an information window with details about the location, web links and contact information.

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The Guilty Pirate Bay Map

Dipity Pirate Bay Timeline

Dipity have produced an interesting time-line of Pirate Bay. The Dipity time-line widget includes a Google Map option which allows events to be plotted geographically as well as chronologically.

The map includes a 'play' option which animates through the events on the map. In this case the animation works backwards. It starts with today's guilty verdict and works backwards to 2003 and the creation of the 'Bureau of Piracy'. I guess the four co-founders of The Pirate Bay might be wishing that it was so easy to turn back time.

Via: The Guardian

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Real-Time Plane Tracking on Google Maps

Flyrader.nu

This is an awesome map of real-time flights over Sweden. The map shows live the positions of all planes over the country. It is even possible to adjust the time between position updates on the map, the choice is between 10, 30 and 60 seconds.

It is possible to click on any of the plane markers and view details about the plane and flight and see it's route trail on the map. The trail of the plane is coloured to reflect the plane's altitude at each point of its journey. The information given about each individual plane is model, airline, latitude and longitude, altitude, speed, orientation and which airport it took off at and where it is landing.

Other Flight Tracking Maps

• GMaps Flight Tracker - inbound flight maps to some busy U.S. airports: Atlanta, Boston, JFK New York, Los Angeles and Chicago
• North American flight tracker! - works for most commercial flights originating and arriving in the United States and/or Canada
• Radar - tracking flights over Sweden

Boat Tracking Maps

• MarineTraffic.com - a Google Map showing real-time information about ship movements throughout the world.
• Hi-Def San Francisco -real-time ship tracking in the San Francisco Bay
• Hurtigruten - Scandinavian ship tracking
• Isle of Wight Live Ship Tracking - live tracking of ships around the Isle of Wight
  

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New Scandanavian Google Maps Mash-Ups

Berlingske Tidende

Berlingske Tidende is a Danish newspaper that has produced a good example of an interactive crime map. Readers of the newspaper are able to tag crimes on the map and detail how well the police respond to the crime. Since launching in May over seventy crimes have been added to the map.

The newspaper uses the map not only to map crimes in Denmark but as a source of news stories for the newspaper and two full-time reporters are assigned to the project. Although the paper stress that they are only reporting what their readers tell them they also say that "our journalists read through all the reports to check their credibility."

Via: Journalism.co.uk

Korrespondenterna

From Sweden comes this foreign correspondents map from Sveriges Television. With the map it is possible to locate the base country of each of the television channel's foreign correspondents. The correspondents' locations are tagged on the map and each tag contains a photograph of the reporter.

Huspriser

Huspriser is a searchable database of real estate in Norway. With the map it is possible to search for properties by region. The results of a search are returned with the properties tagged on a Google Map and listed in descending order of price above the map.

Lennot.nu
Lennot.nu is a simple but effective Finnish flights and aviation site that uses Google Maps to show all official airports in Finland. All the airports' locations are tagged on a Google Map and are also listed in a sidebar beside the map.

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Google Maps News for 2007-06-23

News..

Geocoding has recently launched in:

• Norway
• Denmark
• Finland
• Russia (for 24 cities)
• ..Back on May 8th geocoding was launched for Brazil, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Portugal

..This means you can now search for cities, towns and street addresses in these countries on Google Maps! Local business listings and a country specific domain name have also been added for:

Sweden - http://maps.google.se
Denmark - http://maps.google.dk (Check out Soren Johannessen's post about this..)

Other News:

Google acquires photo sharing Google Maps mashup Panoramio:

Google Maps Mania has long followed the introduction of Panoramio, the photo sharing site that lets you map your photos using both Google Maps and Google Earth. The Panoramio team is excited to announce that Google has acquired their company! Check out the blog post link above for all the details - And be sure to check out Panoramio!

New feature: Add your reviews to businesses on Google Maps - Do you love a certain pizza place or want to tell the world about a restaurant that makes a mean cheeseburger? Tell the world about it using a new feature on Google Maps - User business reviews. From the Google LatLong Blog: "..Search for your favorite places and click on the "More Info" link. From there, click on "Write a Review" to start giving your two cents."

Google Maps Tour Updated! - Take a look at the new tour on Google Maps to learn how to make use of all its features!

..Click the "Google Maps" label below for other recent Google Maps News!

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Sweden - How to use Google Maps as a Tourist Agency

(post by Robert de Heer)

VisitSweden.com - Thinking of visiting Sweden this summer? The most easy way to find more info on this country, is using the country-website VisitSweden.com. Like many other country-websites, also this one has had a map-application online. Recently, Margareta Björnberg and Tommy Sollén of VisitSweden.com decided to change their current paid-for map-provider for the free Google Maps-solution. Not just because of pricing, but also because of what you all can do with Google Maps, and not with other providers. They have now implemented many points-of-interest, in an easy clickable way to use. This is how all Tourist Agencies should use their website to allow visitors to quickly see, what all can be done in a country.

19 New European Google Maps Mashups!

Czech Republic: Prague 360

Explore the beautiful city of Prague using this great Google Maps mashup (translated into 18 languages) Features city highlights with a nice Flash panoramic viewer. This is definitely one to check out! (More Czech Republic Google Maps mashups here..)

• Germany: Shopping Map - Search for products and find matching eBay offers
• Germany: Berlin Ping Pong Tables - German language mashup that helps you find a public ping pong table
• Switzerland: Geneva Apartments - Google Maps and Earth real estate mashup
• Sweden: Runner's Log - Swedish Google Maps based running tool
• The Netherlands: Map of Road Work - Dutch mashup to display current projects
• The Netherlands: Geoday Benelux 2007
• Malta: Best of Malta - A mashup of the best 4 and 5 star hotels including videos
• Turkey: Holiday Town of Kusadasi - A mashup for this resort town in coastal Turkey
• Andora: Accomodations Map - French, Spanish and English language
• Italy: Holiday Rentals - English and Italian language mashup
• Denmark: Trafikkameraer - Sjælland - 25 traffic cams all over Zealand.
• Denmark: De 98 nye kommuner pr. 1. januar 2007 - Mashup of the new 98 Municipalities of Denmark January 1, 2007
• Denmark: Storbyliv - Search/see upcoming events for 5 major cities in Denmark
• Denmark: MitKBH - Users writes reviews about bars, dance clubs, restaurants, shops etc in Copenhagen
• Denmark: Camping places - over 500 hundred danish camping places
• (Thanks to Soren Johannessen for the above Danish mashups!)

Across Europe:

• Europe: Skateparks across Europe - German language mashup of skate parks in countries throughout Europe
• Germany, Switzerland and Austria: Bike Tours - German language site using Google Maps to suggest cycling routes
• Europe: European Union in 2007 - View countries and when they joined the EU
• Europe: POIs for across Europe - Points of interest for all European countries

Recent Google Maps Mania posts:

• Google Maps update for: Russia, Turkey, Taiwan, Thailand, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania!
• New satellite imagery (Europe) for Google Maps - Mar.1/07
• France Google Maps Mashup Roundup - Part 6
• Italy Google Maps Mashup Roundup Part 2
• Google Maps - Send to BMW (Germany)

Many of the mashups contained in this post were found on the ProgrammableWeb Google Maps feed.

8 new Google Maps mashups for European countries

Sweden: Study in Sweden Google Map - StudyInSweden is the Swedish government's official portal for students thinking of studying in Sweden. There are around 300 master's programmes taught in English at Swedish universities, and they are free for anybody to apply to and attend -- including foreign students. StudyInSweden exists to tell the world that you can study for free in English in Sweden (if you're good enough), and now it's just become easier to find out just where these universities are through this Google Maps mashup which helps you locate where these universities are located. Start with this page or click, then click on the link above to view the Google Map. Google Earth functionality also exists. [Via Steff at OgleEarth]

Belgium: Election Results - JRoller.com points us to this next mashup from Belgium which maps the countries recent election results. Drill down from main cities, then regions within the cites show graphed results. I like the zoom and map-view toggling icons which are used. (Belgian/French language)[via]

Belgium: Where to Tango - It takes two to tango, and with this map you can find out where to go in major cities across Belgium. Google Earth and YouTube is also integrated. (English language) [via]
All of Europe: Gay Travel - Maps for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Cologne, Granada, Lisbon, Madrid, Prague and Rome. Look for "city map" on each page. (English language)
All of Europe: Hotels - French language Hotel site for various cities in Europe. [Via ProgrammableWeb]
Greece: Mountain Refuges - Google Maps is combined with the Hellenic National Tourist Organization containing information about mountain refuges in Greece. Links to tourist site details also included. (bilingual English and Greek). [Via ProgrammableWeb]
Finland: Daily Gigs and clubs - Listings for Helsinki. (Finnish language)
Poland: City of Torun Map - (Polish language) [Via ProgrammableWeb]

..Coming Soon: Country Roundups for the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands