Google Earth adds city tours and monkey blogs

By Shaun Nichols on Sep 15, 2006 1:50PM

Search giant expands geographic application with new 'featured content'.

Google has released new featured content for its Google Earth application, adding everything from city tours to monkey blogs on top of the application's satellite images.

The new content includes a timeline of environmental changes over the past 30 years, video clips of landmarks and places of interest, and guided tours of cities.

The five initial content providers for the project are National Geographic, Discovery Networks, the US National Park Service, the Turn Here video travel guides, and the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation.

"Google Earth Featured Content is a way for Google to connect users with really compelling, high-quality information being illustrated and shared on Google Earth," said John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Maps.

The most unique of Google's new content might be that delivered by the Jane Goodall Institute.

The wildlife research facility, based in Tanzania, provides Google with pictures of the institute's resident chimpanzees and access to the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog written by the animals' keepers.

"The Jane Goodall Institute is a great partner and we are thrilled that it has been able to leverage the power of Google Earth to tell the story of its chimpanzee research," said Hanke.

The new Google Earth content is streamed live over the Web, and is available automatically to all users without the need to upgrade.