One of my personal passions is sustainability. I firmly believe that if we each commit to doing what we can to change our eating habits, and consume more local, seasonal, and ethically grown/raised foods — we can change the world. Since you didn’t come to this site to see me preach from my little soapbox, I’ll get to the part where Google’s new “My Maps” feature comes in.
My friends know that food is a passion for me, and many of them want to make some efforts to eat more local foods — but they don’t know where to start. They do know that I seem to buy a lot of my food at local farms and small producers. When they asked me if I’d create a list of resources for them, I decided to do it using Google Maps. That way, they would not only be able to see where I shop, but also the locations, get directions, and all kinds of other great information. (Check out the Map)
I found that it took me all of 45 minutes to create my custom map of the Washington DC region, and was able to use icons to denote the different types of resources. I was also able to add details, links to websites, and a few pictures. Another great feature is that Google Maps now has a Google Earth export (KML). This is an incredible way to give anyone a virtual tour, and a few non-profit organizations and small business are making great use of Google Earth already.
Whatever your passion, take a look at how to use Google Maps and Google Earth to share it in new and engaging ways. What I’ve done is only a small amount of the customization that is available and easy to do right on Google Maps, so get creative and share your world!
Technorati Tags: google earth, google maps, google, mapping, geography, non-profits, connecting
Let’s put the basics of good search engine optimization aside for a moment, and look at the new reason to care: social bookmarking sites. All those sites that you see under the “share this” link on my site and so many others — that’s why you care. When you click on a social bookmarking link, it pulls the page title and description. If it’s blank — you leave it to the visitor to fill it in. If you’ve pre-filled it with helpful, accurate information — most people just leave it be. If you fill it with inaccurate, self-serving crap, a lot of people will change it.
Still don’t think it’s important? Well, here is a screen capture of what I got when 
Let’s look at Social Media Optimization guru Rohit Bhargava’s site and see if he missed this important little tidbit. I’m actually crossing my fingers here, because I really respect Rohit and he knows his stuff. So I’m going to be happy if his titles and descriptions are really optimized for social bookmarking. 
So, now I’m going to put my site up to the test. I’ve installed the “All in One SEO Pack” plugin for Wordpress, so it should be pretty decent. I’m using the last article I wrote, which apparently wasn’t interesting enough to merit any comments — but that’s an issue for later discussion.
