Google Embeds Google Maps

We all see those YouTube videos embedded everywhere across the Internet. Google has just implemented the same technology that allowed everyone to place videos onto their blog, myspace account, website, etc. to their Google Maps solution. Take a look at the official announcment.

In case you were wondering, this is huge news. Google maps has been very difficult to implement on you website in the past. If you wanted Google maps on your website before you needed to get the Google Maps API, hire a techie, get some data and mash it all together. You can now create a map in your “My Maps” area of your Google account, copy and paste some code onto your website and you’re ready to go. Now, you can do everything you needed without the help of a techie.

It makes me wonder why they didn’t do this before. It’s what we’ve all been waiting for. Pat Kitano from Transparent RE (who already wrote about this topic) and I were looking for this about a month ago and now we don’t have to wait any longer. I guess it was only a matter of time.

Anyways, let’s take a quick look at this. On the Official Google Maps blog they give us 3 basic directions.
1. Find a map to use.
2. Click “Link to this page” in the top right-hand corner. Copy the text that you see in the second box.
3. Paste that code onto your blog or website. (It looks like they are using an “IFRAME” in order to make it work. )

Here’s a quick map I threw together of where all us Geeks at the GeekEstate Blog are located. Note that iFrames do not work within wordpress posts (otherwise I would have embedded it into this post).

View Larger Map

Overall, this seems like an easy solution to a long awaited desire. The usage of the “IFRAME” is very simple and it really isn’t that technical. At least they’ve now made it easier for those who don’t know how to work with Iframe’s.