Some Uses of Google Earth

First order of business: Remember the Alamo

Google Earth and I have a peculiar history. Last year, before I had the equipment to access it, I was assigned to do an article about its uses in a certain segment of the real estate industry. I did the article by reading about Google Earth and talking to people who use it. Not so different than some other articles I've written -- I don't have to be an expert in, for example, the documentation or due diligence that goes into commercial mortgage-backed securities to write about them, after all.

Late in the year, I obtained a machine that plays Google Earth nicely, and, as usual with such things, played with it like the new toy it was by looking up my house and friends' houses and so on. After a while my interest in that petered out.

But last week I actually used Google Earth professionally. I had an assignment to write about a project under development in Las Vegas. Much, in fact, is under development in that town, and in this case it was mid-priced condos "near downtown" at the intersection of such-and-such and so-and-so. I'm not that familiar with the details of Vegas street theory, so I wanted to get an idea of what else is near that location to be more precise in my description. Google Earth was just the thing.

A few days later, I was writing about a commercial property sale in a certain California town, not one of larger ones, and I wanted to add to my story a little information about what part of the state it was in. Previously I would look it up in the index of my road atlas and then look on one of the atlas's pages. This time I called up Google Earth, put in the town's name, and zoom, I'm there. Another marvel of the age.