Our first Google Geo Developer series is over...but the YouTubes will last a lifetime!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 10:36:00 AM

Two months ago, we announced the start of the Google Geo Developer series on this blog. The point of the series was to bring together local geo developers for intimate talks/discussions around Maps/KML topics, and then let all developers watch the events on YouTube. It was a bit of an experiment - would we find enough topics for talks every week? Would anyone watch the videos? Well, I'm happy to say it was a successful experiment. Besides having 6 great talks and more than 20,000 YouTube video views, we also met a bunch of local developers working on geo projects (thanks for always showing up, you guys), and even met some folks from far away through the mailing list. Hopefully we'll get to hold another of these series in the falls, so subscribe to the mailing list if you want to find out about future events.

Here's a roundup of the talks that went down, with links to videos. Click "More info" on the YouTube description and you'll often find a link to slides/materials.

  • Quick & Dirty KML Creation: With Mano Marks, Pamela Fox, and Christiaan Adams
    A demonstration of creating KML visually in Google Earth & Google Maps, and using Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0
  • Creating Custom Maps: With John Coryat
    A comparison of various ways of overlaying data in the Maps API and an in-depth explanation of creating tile layers and custom map types
  • GigaPan In-Depth: With Randy Sargent & Ted Morse
    A demo of the GigaPan panorama-browsing website and KML files, plus a technical explanation of PhotoOverlay
  • Dynamic KML: With Mano Marks & Brian Hamlin
    An exploration of using dynamic queries from KML, using the NetworkLink, httpQuery, and viewFormat elements, plus a demo of a PostGIS-generated NetworkLink
  • Mars, Moon, and Sky Map Types: With Noel Gorelick
    A talk introducing the non-Earth Maps API map types, plus cool demos of other types of projections used with planetary imagery
  • Mapping the Votes: With Michael Geary
    A whirlwind tour of what it took to create the Elections 2008 Map/Mapplet/Gadget, including SHPfile conversion, Javascript optimization, centroid calculations, Twitter updates collection, Mapplet API tricks, and more.
  • Google API Talks - Android, KML, Google Maps, Gadgets
    A series of 5-minute talks by various developers and Googlers given before Geary's presentation, including an intro to Gadgets/Mapplets.