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Google 's Earth shows off Eva Longoria

Men s magazine Maxim is advertising a giant cover of their 100th issue, featuring its cover image of Eva Longoria, that was constructed in the desert outside of Las Vegas. It was however not shot from space. It was constructed on the ground, photographed and made viewable in Google Earth through an overlay file.

Making an overlay file for insertion into Google Earth is not really difficult, but to get Google Earth to promote it is a bit more of a challenge. Clearly there is some sort of agreement in play here. The Maxim page about the Eva photo has a promo box pointing people over to Google Earth to do download the software.

But this raises the question about what Google Earth is trying to achieve and its potential direction it wants to go to. It starts off as an amazing free software programme, which is mind boggling and gets millions of people interested. It works well, it seems accurate and informative, it feels like Google has offered us a free virtual globe. But then what happens. Advertising and marketing strategies appear.

There have been a variety of products placed on Google Earth, this one seemingly to have a very high impact due to its good marketing.

This positions globalisation and product placement onto a new level, literally onto a new sense of scale. Will Google Earth become the largest advertorial ever, allowing companies to promote themselves on a virtually global scale?

Clearly this is becoming Google s Earth, as I have mentioned before. And was this maybe the outset of the initiative in the first place? Imagine the amount of revenue Google would receive selling advertising space on Google Earth! Eva Longoria in a bikini, half naked, in the desert...

There

  1. Anonymous Anonymous | Tuesday, May 23, 2006 3:16:00 am |  

    Hmmm. Interesting and frightening. But then, Googles whole revenue is based on advertising, so why not?

  2. Anonymous Anonymous | Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:36:00 pm |  

    Maybe the advertising can help, in that better technology can be used so that clear pictures can be used and not blurred images (of remote places). But as gregor has implied this program is the perfect platform to launch a massive advertising campaign!

  3. Blogger Gregor | Wednesday, May 24, 2006 4:57:00 pm |  

    ...but remote places won't have anything to advertise for, and this also means that only places with enough recources can buy advertisment. Also, what if you place your advert onto a competitors geographic location, can and will this be controlled? Google basically has the commercial right of your satelite imaged property?

    ere is where the danger lies, it seems that Google Earth is a 'free' and 'open' program, but all its contents is still controlled by Google!