Google never ceases to amaze me, the company is innovative and constantly doing stuff that is both useful and interesting.

I knew about “My Maps” in Google Maps, but I had never thought about the idea of using the interface for websites. Then a friend who works on the Photo Travel Review team, showed me how Google Maps can be of great use on a website. Go have at look here. WOW, a way to show others places along with photos, thus making the website far more interesting than was possible in the past. And, it’s easy to do.

So, I tried creating a map myself, one that just showed a few places I had been on the earth, along with links to larger photographs taken at the spots, and links to articles I had written about the places. Really cool stuff. Go have a look here.

The use of this capability is simply endless. Others have done some innovative things. My friend, Phil Colla, is now using both Google Maps and Google Earth in a really neat way on his website. Others have done some impressive things as well, like folks at Fotonatura.

I have used links to Google Earth to display some of my treks. One trek involved my trip from a boat to the top of Bartolme in the Galapagos Islands. You can view that trek here, (you need Google Earth installed on your PC or Mac to view this link).

At Photo Travel Review we hope to make use of this technology more often with our articles and reviews, giving our visitors a new experience in going to places and actually seeing quality images taken at the same spots. That, is innovative I think and it’s the sort of idea that makes good websites better. Here is another example of using this technology in an article.

Now, I need to call my stock broker and buy some Google stock, should have done that a long time ago.