Google and I take the slow boat to China

Post date: Nov 18, 2010 7:16:32 PM

Today began with a test-run of yet another sociable Google product, with the pleasing name of Hotpot. Actually, Hotpot was rolled out yesterday. The official news site for Hotpot can be found on a brand new Google Hotpot blog on Blogger. I wrote a post about Hotpot at one of my other on-line homes, my Google hobby site, at the Googleplex on WordPress. I'll include my review of Hotpot, instead of repeating myself.

Suffice it to say that Hotpot is a location based-service (LBS). In the way of the internet, Hotpot led to Google Places, and ultimately, Google Maps. That was the impetus for my embedded cartographic creation.

In response to my rather demanding itinerary query, Google Maps beta version revealed that I must embark upon a journey of 1,293 stages requiring approximately 243 days, in order to travel by foot from my home in Phoenix, Arizona to a random industrial park in Shanghai, China. This image depicts part of that journey.

View Larger Map

I would suggest viewing the larger map, so that you may appreciate it (hopefully) in its full glory. I customized it so that my travels would be graced by photos of real-estate for sale, as well as Google Buzz-ing from passer-by en route, and enclosed in little white cartoon-style bubbles, to keep me from getting lonely along the way.

Sorry, I know I sound like a syncophant, but at the moment, I believe that Google is nothing less than amazing.