A British security guard has found an image on Google Earth which resembles the legendary Lock Ness Monster, but has the illusive creature finally been caught on camera?

The image shows a large unidentified object, which resembles a sea creature, on the surface or beneath the water. The image can be found by searching Google Earth and entering coordinates Latitude 57°12′52.13″N, Longitude 4°34′14.16″W.

Adrian Shine, a Loch Ness researcher has called the image “Really Intriguing” and is said to be investigating the story further.
Google have been so intrigued by the findings that on Thursday, they sent the new Google Street Maps Bike to circle the lake and record further imagery for the Street Maps project, hoping to capture more evidence.

It has been suggested that the image is of the Lock Ness Express, a boat which regularly tours the lake. Another image of the boat can be seen on Google Earth by entering the coordinates Latitude 57°10′8.21″N, Longitude 4°37′53.37″W.

It’s unknown at this time exactly what the image is but internet users are eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Lock Ness Google Street Map imagery, just in case they spot something else.

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

Technorati Tags: entertainment, Google, google lock ness, google maps, google maps lock ness, google maps lock ness monster, internet, Lock ness, lock ness monster, maps, tech, technology

Google has been busy updating its services this week, Google Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Google Reader and Google Books have all been updated as part of Google’s continued development. So the big question is, “What’s New?” Here’s a brief overview.

Google Maps has added Picasa photos to Street view. As long as the image has been Geo-tagged Google will include it in Street View.

“Millions of people already rely on Picasa Web Albums to share their photographs with friends and the internet community. Now, their public geo-tagged photos will help Google Maps users to get a better impression of a geographic place, especially for areas where we may not have any Panoramio photos,” Daniel Cotting, software engineer, Google Zurich, wrote on Google’s Lat Long Blog.


“We’ve selected these photos by looking for geo-tagged public images in Picasa Web Albums. We apply face detection to screen out images with identifiable individuals and image matching so that we’re including the most relevant photographs.”

Google AdSense is conducting email interviews to find out exactly what it’s publishers want. Google are obviously keen to understand more about the needs and requirements of their publishers in light of the new Bing Yahoo search deal. Bing and Yahoo pose a potential threat to Google and customer feedback will help Google to improve the service further. Adsense has also launched a Beta Category Filter system for English Language feed ads.

YouTube recently ran a 1,024 recipe multivariate experiment using Google’s Website Optimizer. The results were fantastic, a 15.7% increase in new account signup based on minor changes to the site layout and text.

Google Reader has introduced a new sharing option allowing you to share content with Twitter and Facebook.

Google books have added a Creative Commons license option for its partners, to protect published content.

Article by Creative SEO

Technorati Tags: adsense, blog, books, Google, google adsense, google books, google maps, google reader, internet, maps, news, reader, tech, technology, YouTube

Google Maps changed the way we search for location information, directions and mapping data. Google are continuing to evolve and develop the product by adding more and more new layers of data and functionality. Images, Articles, Video content, user lists and itineraries are all currently available to view. The latest new additions to Google Maps include attraction information and points of interest.



Users can now discover businesses, attractions and other key points of interest on the maps but only at a high level of zoom. New icons show key points of interest and each of these icons can be clicked to reveal detailed information about the location.



These new functions yet again improve the user experience and offer greater levels of information to the end user. The only worry is that will there eventually be too much data to view at any one time. We are convinced that Google has plans to implement a new and improved filter menu system to combat this very issue. Possibly utilising existing filtering technology, maybe even using a similar interface to Google Earth, we will have to wait and see.

Article by Creative SEO News

Technorati Tags: blog, features, Google, google maps, internet, maps, news, search, seo, tech, technology

Google Street views, the controversial 360 degree virtual mapping service has come to Coronation Street.
Coronation Street, the UK’s longest running soap, has been visited by the controversial Google Street Views mapping car. Very soon you will be able to take a virtual 360 degree tour of the whole of Coronation street, walking in the footsteps of the stars. Famous locations that have been included are Rita’s Kabin, Roy’s Rolls, and Rovers Returns.

Google Street Views is a new generation of 3d mapping service which has been integrated into the existing Google Maps and Google Earth systems. It allows users to virtually walk or drive down a 3d photographic representation of a road. The system takes hundreds of thousands of static images which are reassembled to create a virtual 360 degree representation of the location.

“Thanks to Street View, fans will be able to have a good nose around the set in a way that would have been unimaginable almost 50 years ago when the show was first aired”. Explained an ITV spokesman.

The service is due to be launched in the next few days. So if you’re a Coronation Street fan this is one new Google feature that you can’t afford to miss.

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Marketing

Technorati Tags: Coronation street, coronation street google, coronation street google street view, Google, google maps, google street view

Google Maps adds a collection of Celebrity Favorite places from around the world, is this the first stage of testing a new system which allows Google users to share their favourite places?

Google Maps has revolutionised the internet and online mapping. Local companies are able to add their businesses directly to Google Maps, showing the location of their company and advertising there business under local search terms and all this for free.
Google are constantly trying to improve the service by adding more and more places and destinations to Google Maps. Google Local Business centre has been extremely successful but still only a small proportion of businesses have taken the time to add their company. Google needs to look at new alternative methods of populating attractions, businesses and places of interest in order to continue to add value to the service.

Google have added a New feature to Google Maps called Favourite Places which currently shows the favourite destinations of celebrities and a comment about why they really like each location. The data for this initial experiment has been accumulated from a variety of different sources including: United Airlines, NYC & Company, Time Out and Le Figaro.



This is a fun service but with around 200 celebrities revealing their Favorite places from around the world, how will this truly benefit the end user?

Google have let slip to the potential of this service and it seems they will be using the service to discover and recruit more local businesses to appear in Google Maps.

“With this project we also hope to send a friendly message to local businesses — people are looking online for local information, and you should be here.” Taken from the Official Google Blog.

As the service stands this would not be possible, but by allowing Google users to add their own personal favourite places, Google could potentially massively improve their ability to discover and add new Local businesses, places of interest and attractions. Allowing the Google community to help with the discovery would be an act of genius and would add yet another unique feature to the service, maintaining Google’s industry leading position.

More and more people are turning to the internet in order to find local businesses, restaurants, bars, clubs, stores etc through the use of computers and mobile devices.

“It’s estimated that 80% of U.S. Internet users use web search to find restaurants, stores and other local businesses, and yet only about half of local businesses currently have a website. By working with local experts to highlight the power of the web, we’re encouraging local business owners to build out their online presence.” Google.

Consumer demand is high and it’s clear to see that Google are taking this demand seriously. Adding more local businesses to Google Maps would add value to the service allowing users to find the local services they were looking for. If Google were to open up favourites to the Google Community, the potential functionality would be extremely exciting. Local businesses could be assigned a level of popularity based to direct searches for specific locations and business types. Users could accurately rate a business based on personal experience. The list of functionality goes on, we will have to wait and see exactly what Google has planned, but as always this is an exciting time.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Technorati Tags: celebrity, celebrity favourite destinations, celebrity favourites, Google, google local business, google local business centre, google maps, google maps celebrity, google maps celebrity favourites, google maps local