How to use your own icons in Google My Maps

This article shows how to use your own icons to label places in maps that you make with the My Maps' feature in  Google Maps.

Finding the co-ordinates of a place in the new Google Maps

This article explains how to get the co-ordinates for a particular location in the new and old Google Maps interfaces.

How to access your Google Custom Maps after migrating to the new Google Maps

This QuickTip is about how to access your existing Google Custom Maps, once you have started using the new Google Maps interface being introduced in mid 2013.

Introducing Maps Engine Lite - a better tool for customizing maps

This article is an introduction to Google's Maps Engine Lite, which is a tool for creating custom maps.

Knowing about better pictures Google Maps & Earth

If you blog about geographic locations, or add Google custom maps to your blog, then it can be very helpful to know when the satellite photos for a certain area are updated. Among other things, this is a reminder to check your map for any details that have changed.

Google's new Follow Your World service tells you just that.

In short, you sign up with your google account, and register to get email alerts when new images for a specific point are availabe in Google Maps or Earth.

Unfortunately you need to select on specific point, not an area, so there's a risk that you might miss updated if you're just a few metres out. But it's beta at the moment, so this may change in future

I haven't seen an official announcement, but it's mentioned in this post on the latLong blog

Becoming a Google Trusted Photographer

Previously I described Google's Trusted Photographer's programme, which could be a nice business opportunity for serious photo-bloggers.

At that time, Google were selling business-owners the idea of using a TP to take photos of your business and upload them to Places/Maps. But they were pretty vague about how to become a TP.

Today, they've given links to far more info about how it works and how to to sign up as a Google trusted photographer.

An opportunity for blogger photographers

Bloggers who are also photographers may want to check out Google's Trusted Photographers programme.  The message announcing this to businesses says:

"It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. ... schedule a time and agree on a price that you will pay the photographer for a photoshoot of your business. ... During the hour it should take for the shoot, you can collaborate ... about how best to display and capture your business. ... the photographer will upload the images to Google, and ..  you’ll see ... views of your business on [your local Google search site], Google Maps and on your Google Places listing. "

So for a photographer, it looks like the process is:

• You get approved as a GTP (does being a long-standing photo blogger help with this?).
• Google advertise that you're available
• Businesses and organisations that want official photos in Google contact you, and negotiate times/prices.
• You visit, take the photos, and do any post-processing
• You load them to Google on behalf of your customer.

Google have provided a Service Agreement that you must use - as a commissioned job, the ownership of the copyright of the photos passes to the person or organisation who pays.  So you'll need their permission if you want to put the photos onto your blog.

Final thought:
I wonder if there's any way to embed a Google Places listing, including the official photos, in a blog - the same way we can embed a custom map.


How to become a Google Trusted Photographer
I didn't a quick search, but couldn't find definitive answers.    I did find some info about what sort of things they are expected to do:

Trusted Photographers are trained to take high quality photos of building interiors, accommodating for common challenges such as low lighting and tight spaces. The photographers are also certified to take pictures using fisheye lenses and rotating camera turrets (mounted on tripods)

And this link, where you can enquire about the program:   http://maps.google.com/help/maps/businessphotos/interested-photographer.html

Showing a Google Custom-Map on your Blog

This article is about embedding custom maps made with Google maps into blogs made with Blogger.  However similar principles also apply to putting Google custom maps into other types of website.

Making a Custom Map in Google Maps

This article is about creating custom maps using Google maps.  It supports another article about putting maps into Blogger.  But the techniques apply whenever you want to generate a Google map of your own, and embed it into a web-site etc.