Google My Maps Viewer

Last year, Google launched My Maps, a feature that lets anyone create their own custom map using Google's mapping software. Since then, more than 9 million maps have been created with 40 million placemarks (which according to Google, is essentially 1 new placemark a second). Google has recently put together a page that displays recently edited or added My Maps at random. Take a look at http://maps.google.com/recentmaps -- it's pretty amazing to see some of the great maps that users from all over the world have created. [via Google Lat Long Blog]

Google helps get Photoshop support in Wine

There was a very interesting post in the new Google Open Source blog detailing some of Google's contributions to Wine, the open source compatibility layer for running Windows apps on top of Unix-like operating systems Google's initial development for Wine was linked with its Linux port of Picasa, which is bundled with a lightly patched version of Wine, but in the past year, Google has expanded their involvement to other areas. Most exciting? Google hired Codeweavers to improve support for Photoshop (version 5 through CS2) and as of the 0.9.5.4 release (about three weeks ago), it's working pretty well. So when you find yourself able to install that old copy of Photoshop CS2 in Ubuntu via Wine, thank Google.

Simplify mapping with Google Spreadsheets

Google uses something called KML to create layers and placemarks for Google Maps and Google Earth. Creating your own custom KML layer just got a lot easier, thanks to Google Spreadsheets and the Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0 tool. With the tool you can easily create up to 400 placemarks, choose from one of six ready-made balloon designs to designate those placemarks and create and share your own balloon designs using the HTML templating system. [via Google Lat Long Blog]

Google Business YouTube channel

Google has recently launched a Google Business YouTube channel that focuses on various Google business technologies like AdWords and Google Analytics. There is a great "Advertiser Education" series that explains principles like Return on Investment (ROI) in relation to Google AdWords, as well as covering topics like negative keywords and conversion tracking. If you want to learn more about how Google's business solutions work and whether or not they might be useful for your own site, take a peek at this channel.
[via Google AdWords Blog]

And here are some other stories we've been following this week:

• Google to roll out video ads in search pages - Text -only links are so passe. According to the New York Time, Google is about to roll out video advertisements tailored to content (similar to how Google's text ads work). We haven't seen any yet, but be on the lookout.
• Google rolls out Gmail updates in 37 languages - Google has extended the new GMail updates from last Fall to 37 additional language. After all, why should English speakers have all the fun?
  
• Pimp your Blogspot blog - Check out these tips for making your Blogspot blog look less generic and amateurish and more professional and unique.