Google released the latest version of their geographic playground last week. The imagery-rich Google Earth 4.3 seems more deserving of a full version number update, but it leaves one to wonder just how much more sophisticated a full version 5.0 could really be.

Having cut my teeth in business at a mapping company, I have an appreciation for where GIS (Geographic Information Systems) technology is coming from and where it’s going to. It wasn’t 5 years ago that very low-resolution painfully out of date satellite and terrestrial imagery (often in indecipherable shades of black and white) was available on only a very limited basis, and a respectable company could still charge several thousand dollars for enormous, awkward images of a select few locations. When the company called Keyhole released their EarthViewer product about 4 years ago as a paid service, heads turned throughout the GIS industry. The product was revolutionary in its simplicity and in typical Mountain View style, “gussied up” and ready to be purchased by a certain search company. Google did just that and in June 2005, released the product as Google Earth at no cost.

Today, just 3 years later, Google Earth is a household term and used by a hugely diverse array of industries. Thousands of layers are available documenting everything from crime statistics to dolphin migratory routes. Arguably, Google Earth has become the official map of the world (a costly feat that many government agencies failed miserably at).

With Google Earth 4.3, viewers can access the amazing, yet still somewhat unknown, database of oblique images known as Google Streetview. These images are available in a growing grid across major population hubs. It will only be a matter of time before the images are available for every street in the country, maybe the world.

Check it out!

If you think this is cool, wait a year for Photosynth to make a splash.

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