Thanks for the (indirect) mention Mr. Hanke

The much awaited blog from the Google earth/maps team has now arrived, and it doesn't disappoint. I look forward to hearing more about many things Google is doing or planning, especially details of the collaboration with NASA. I sure hope that NASA puts any generated earth data in the public domain. John Hanke kicks it off with his perception of today's online geo-referenced world:

I don't think that there is agreement on what the geoweb is, but I think there is a lot of enthusiasm and energy across many fronts to make it happen. I expect the "it" will evolve substantially over the next few months and years as we (the geo ecosystem on the web) collectively figure out how "earth browsers," embedded maps, local search, geo-tagged photos, blogs, the traditional GIS world, wikis, and other user-generated geo content all interrelate.

EarthBrowser, the original "earth browser," on the web will continue to be a part of the evolving "geoweb", for lack of a better euphemism. I'll be posting an update later today on some of the cool new technologies coming out in EarthBrowser 3.0.