Google Maps are more than what an average web surfer thinks about it. It's not just about scanning geographical terrain, but goes beyond that. Some of the labs features for Google maps makes it a very useful tool and gives you several unique options that you may have never used before. Much of these features are in labs state but works very well. I'm compiling the best 5 Google Maps labs features that I found quite useful while scanning my favorite maps.
Distance Measurement: It is one of the most useful labs feature for city travelers. Once activated, you can easily calculate distance between two places on a map in your preferred distance metric. If you have travel multiple locations on a single route, it can calculate distance between two points in a route as well as the over all distance from the starting point till the end point. It's one of my favorite labs feature.
Short URL: This feature can be very handy for social media enthusiasts and mobile users. When this feature is turned on, you can obtain a shortened url for your Google map to share easily over different social media services. There's no need to separately used any 3rd party url shortening service for your map access link. Just activate this feature and get instant shortened urls to share and distribute it among your network.
Show Me Here: Yet another useful labs feature for explorers. This features adds a 'Show Me Here!' button to the context menu. Whenever you point a location and click it, you are instantly zoomed in on that location with relevant details. There's no need to scroll, drag and adjust to zoom accurately at any location. Just point and click and there you are. It's a time saver feature, particularly if you're scanning too many locations.
Rotatable Maps: Are you tired off scanning the classic map alignment with north direction always on top. As the name suggests, this feature lets you rotate your maps in any direction giving you more flexibility in scanning. Make sure you're not confused about directions while using this feature. Rotatable maps feature is ideal for architects and civil engineers who regularly use similar feature for their work.
LatLng Marker: This is one of the most useful labs features. Latlng Marker adds a mini-marker to the location you point with latitude and longitude data. These mini-markers are persistent until your delete them explicitly. Even when you drag, rotate or shift your map, these mini-markers retain their position. This feature is ideal for explorers, trackers and mountaineers. I'd like to get this feature out of labs as soon as possible.
What other Google Maps features you find exciting and interesting? Do you use these labs features?
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
5 Features To Enrich Google Map Experience
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
25+ Facebook Applications For Bloggers And Social Media Enthusiasts
If you,re an avid facebook user, probably you're already aware of facebook applications. These extensions/plugins play a major role in enriching your facebook experience. There are thousands of such applications that can cater the need of almost every facebook user. Here are some handpicked facebook applications that can help bloggers and social media enthusiasts to make most out of facebook.
NetworkedBlogs - It is one of the largest communities of bloggers. NetworkedBlogs app brings your blog on facebook either on your profile or a page. People can share, vote, discuss or become a fan of your blog.
Social RSS - It's an excellent feed reader app with enough flexibility and customization options. You can import virtually every standard RSS and ATOM feed format.
Fan Appz - A great social media marketing tool for your facebook fan page. Fan Appz is designed to create an engaging community around your fan page. You can integrate polls, quizzes, gifts and promotions for
Memorable Web Addresses for Profile Page or Group - The name says it all. Wanna easy-to-remember url for your facebook profile. This app gives you several options to choose and build your own memorable web address for your facebook profile.
Social Tweet - One of the best twitter applications that lets you tweet directly from facebook. This application simultaneously post your tweet on facebook as well as your twitter account. You have the option to display your tweet either on your wall or any other custom tab. You can even control which tweet should be posted on your facebook profile.
Grader.com - This nice application grades your facebook profile by analyzing your network strength and level of activity. You can compare and analyze your grading data with your friends grades to find out the vital factors that may help you in achieving higher grade (better facebooking). This application also shows demographic data from various countries.
Eventbrite - If you're hosting an event and want to gather people from facebook community, this application can do it for you with ease. With paid version you get the flexibility of branding your event promotion, integrated ticket selling with more customization options. Ideal for small businesses for promoting their important events on facebook.
SlideShare - The name says it all. It's the best application to share your presentations and documents with facebook community. All major file formats are supported giving you the flexibility to create your presentation in your favorite application. Creative people can also use it to host a webinar by integrating YouTube videos and audio stream.
Professional Profile: Business Networking - It is often called 'LinkedIn - Lite'. This application lets you organize your professional information in a separate custom tab. If you're a blogger, you already know the power of tagging. With this application, you can easily tag your contacts, segregating them into groups for easy access and interaction.
LinkedIn - One of the best applications to tightly integrate your facebook and LinkedIn accounts. This application lets you display your LinkedIn public profile on a separate custom tab. Ideal for job seekers, freelancers and social media enthusiasts.
Twits - A very handy application allowing you to manage multiple twitter accounts via facebook. It not just update your facebook and twitter accounts, but also lets you manage direct messages, replies and scheduling of tweets. You can retweet and unfollow tweeps through this application.
Slates - I've found this application accidentally and I must say it's truly amazing. Slates lets you create web pages within facebook that can be used for almost anything. You can create a blog post, article, resume, sales page or just bout anything you can imagine. If used cleverly, this application has great potential to turn your facebook account into a vibrant marketing hub.
RatePoint - Yet another useful application for social media marketers. RatePoint lets you create email newsletters, surveys, reviews and testimonials. It also links your twitter accont with facebook to share your surveys and newsletters with your twitter network.
SurveyGizmo - As the name suggests, this application can be used to create surveys, polls and quizzes on facebook. The customization options are quite flexible giving your enough freedom to create fairly complex quizzes and polls. A must for bloggers and marketers with large fan base.
SocialToo - This handy application lets you manage/update your twitter account as well as any facebook page linked with your account directly from a centralized location. You can also create vanity urls for facebook pages through this application. SocialToo also provide statistics to track all activity on vanity urls.
YouTube Video Box - This is an excellent application to integrate and share YouTube videos on facebook. You can either share your favorite videos directly from your profile tab or through your facebook page. You can also view trending YouTube videos in your friends network all in a single click. You can also pull videos from any YouTube channel with public access.
YouTube Box - Here's one more application for publishing and sharing YouTube videos through your facebook profile or page. You can maintain an inventory of your favorite videos with custom display settings for different tabs. Interestingly, position of videos posted through this application remains intact even if your wall/tab is updated frequently.
My Flickr - Do you use flickr for your photo sharing needs? This application tightly integrates your flickr account with facebook. You can share your flickr albums or selective pictures based on recent photos, tags, photosets, favorites, groups, interests, date range, flickr privacy and through various sorting options. Your facebook network can comment on your shared photos without leaving facebook.
Youtube Videos - Yet another application for sharing YouTube videos with facebook friends. Apart from regular sharing features, this application has the ability to auto-synchronize your shared YouTube channels. You have the option of either synchronizing entire account or selective channels.
Big Profile Pictures - This handy application lets you show large pictures directly on your profile. You can upload unlimited photos and can selectively display them on your profile. You can also add custom captions to the photos. If you love to regularly change your profile photos, this application is must for you.
Picasa Tab - As the name implies, this application integrates your Picasa Web album as a separate tab on your facebook profile. You can arrange them in groups and can hide your private photos. It's a very useful application if you're using Google's Picasa service as your online photo management service.
My Photobucket - This one is for Photobucket users allowing you to share your public albums with your facebook network. Like other photo sharing applications, you can share and comment on your friends public albums. You can even obtain direct links to photographs without leaving facebook.
Youtube Channels - It is one of the best applications to bring your YouTube channel to facebook with all the loaded features. People can watch, comment, subscribe and can become fan of your YouTube channel. Ideal for internet marketers using YouTube for promoting their cause.
Friends on Twitter (fb140) - This handy application is must for all twitter addicts. Once activated, this application lets you find tweeps in your friends network and vice versa. People can search your twitter account and can follow you without leaving facebook. Highly recommended, if you have a large friends network and want to grow your twitter following overnight.
Advanced Wall - As the name suggests, this excellent application adds some more spice to a typical facebook wall. You can add it as a separate tab or as a box. Loaded with tons of options, you can add almost anything to this wall with impressive access control mechanism.
Super Slideshows - MagShow - A very cool application allowing you to pimp your photo stream on facebook. You create create customized slide show, zoom show that includes custom themes, skins, maps and music. You can even set access permissions at granular level to control who can view your slide shows.
