Mashable Howto: Get the Most Out of Google Maps

Jennifer Van Grove from the high-powered social media site Mashable wrote a great, comprehensive article about Google Maps and how to take advantage of its various features beyond simple address searches.

Excerpt:
Google Maps has become the standard mapping utility for everything from getting directions and finding nearby food options to viewing the surface of the moon. Are you getting the most out of your Google Maps experience? Keep reading to get some helpful hints on how to maximize (or minimize) all your mapping desires. 

See entire article at Mashable…

Project Lore: Big Brother Is Armorying You

The good folks over at Project Lore have noticed that Blizzard did a major revamp to its World of Warcraft Armory site and the changes are quite revealing to say the least:

“…Now the new Armory goes a bit beyond that; not only can you check out a persons gear, you can check to see if they have cleared that heroic before, or any heroic, or if they have ever earned an emblem of heroism. You can even see if what raids they’ve done, how much gold they’ve earned, and how much their biggest heal has been for. It’s all amazing really…”

Crazy news! It’s going to be plain as day to my guild that I’m terrible at raising cash and that I apparently don’t farm enough raid resources as I should be! Is this level of transparency a cause for concern? Maybe it depends if you’re a casual player trying to get buy or a gold farmer whose keeping it on the down low… Hey! How’d you earn only 15 gold yesterday and today it says you earned 1,000 gold? Aha!

Update: Anyone notice that the Armory no longer shows your profile with the buffs you had when you last logged off? Ugh, I sure don’t feel very adequate without the Aspect of the Hawk buff on me!

Google adds Digg-esque features for Remove and Promote

Google adds Digg-esque features for Remove and Promote

Thanks to Dana D from FriendFeed for posting this gem:

Google adds Digg-esque features for Remove and Promote

My take: Don’t know how much weight this system will have on actual results but it could potentially change the entire way SEO and placement strategies work.

Marketing and SEO agencies, take note. If this becomes a defacto standard you will need to refocus some of your resources toward manual placement promotion.

Unfortunately for a lot of businesses and small sites this may create a work pill because they will need to constantly push promote their search engine results to keep them from disappearing from listing. It’s definitely an interesting use of the Digg method but I think Google is making search technology non-pragmatic at the cost of accuracy.