It's A Small World in Google Maps

Have you checked this out yet? Another of Google's prodigious beta tools: Google Maps.

As an Australian, my first urge is to find my home country. So I click away from the States, left a bit, then down a bit, left a little more, then some more again... and soon realise that there is simply not that much ocean on planet Earth. We've been excluded from the first round, as usual.

So, for the interim, let's try getting directions to "pizza", as the Google Maps home page suggests.

My first attempt gave no results, so I reloaded the web app. by clicking on the Google Maps logo. This time, I find that there are multiple hits for "pizza", the first being "Casey's Carry Out Pizza" in Coffeyville, Kansas, 2.1 miles south-east of where I am apparently standing.

Ah, so Google have put Coffeyville as the default dead centre of the United States, and all hits until you move the map, are listed by the distance from this point. This is quite cool indeed. More info on Casey's Carry Out Pizza is given in a pop up, including the ability to get directions to Casey's from your nominated address, and vice versa.

It's easy to see this is already rather useful. Better yet will be when this is available in a low-res format via handheld devices.

And closer still, we all come together, huh.