Last summer Google announced with great fanfare, at their offices in New York, their new program called Google Earth Outreach. Outreach is designed to help non-profit organizations reach the public by creating Google Earth content to help more people understand the issues we face with the environment, social issues, natural resource management, and more.
A new team of people were being assigned to the new project, and the first thing we saw were the very useful set of web pages for Outreach which include sections for helping people design better Google Earth content. However, we haven’t seen much else from Outreach in the nearly six months since the announcement. This week they added a new layer called “Earth From Above” to the Global Awareness layer. I was particularly impressed that this layer was simultaneously released in several languages. The first time I believe this has been done. But, I had expected by now there were would be a flood of new Outreach-derived content. Maybe they’re going to wait for the start of the year?
Yesterday, Google announced a new Google Earth Outreach Showcase. There is already a Google Earth Gallery which includes many types of Google Earth content (including the type which I would classify as outreach). But, I guess they decided they needed a special showcase just for the Outreach-type content. Maybe this is a clue that a lot of new content is coming?
google earth outreach
Google Earth Outreach Enhancements
Google announced the Google Earth Outreach program in June of this year. The new initiative is designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do. The Outreach web site highlights content from non-profits, provides tips and tutorials for producing better KML, and GE Pro grants are available to US non-profits.
Outreach Showcase
Google has enhanced its showcase with many examples of Outreach Google Earth content. For example, look at the many powerful examples of Google Earth content about our environment. Many of the showcased examples have been written about with more detail in Google Earth Blog – see the GEB environment category.
Outreach YouTube Channel
Goolge has developed an Outreach YouTube channel with clips about non-profit content as well as tutorials for developing better KML. Here is an example of the UNEP layer:
Background Information on Global Awareness Layers
In addition, there are now new in-depth background information pages on several of the Global Awareness layers from Google Earth. These well-written stories provide interesting details about how and why they these layers were created. For example:
- UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)
- Crisis in Darfur
- Appalachian Mountaintop Removal
- Neighbors Against Irresponsible Logging
- Gombe Chimpanzee Blog
Google Earth Outreach Announcement Video
You can now watch the video Google recorded of the announcement of the new Google Earth Outreach program which was done at the New York City Google Earth office on Tuesday:
I especially enjoyed the part where Jane Goodall was speaking to us via satellite and especially when she shared the chimpanzee greeting to us all. You can read my notes from the announcement here. Also, I recommend you read the official Google blog post about the new Outreach program by its new manager Rebecca Moore.
Notes from the Google Earth Outreach Announcement in NYC
Yesterday I was invited to Google’s New York City office to attend the Google Earth Outreach announcement. The details on the event I blogged about yesterday were based on the press release (and written before the event). Today I wanted to share my personal observations and thoughts because I think Google Earth Outreach is an important new initiative. The bulk of the attendees at this event were not the press, but in fact, Google mostly non-profit organizations who have been working, or will be working, with Google’s new program.
Here is a slideshow of a few pictures from the event. You can also view the photos in Google Earth 
or Maps (note, this is a new capability I will write about later):
John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps at Google, was one of the founders of Keyhole – the company which Google bought which produced the application which became Google Earth. John made the announcement about the new Outreach program. He said it wasn’t long after Google Earth was released that non-profit organizations started developing powerful visualizations with the application. Google people helped a number of these organizations with their noble causes, mostly with their 20 percent time and this work has been inspirational for many members of the Google Earth team. Many of the non-profit organizations needed technical help in order to make the best presentation with Google Earth possible. The resulting layers like Crisis in Darfur, Mountaintop removal, and the UNEP environmental layer, have been significantly successful – not only interesting and important content, but actually resulting in drawing significant world-wide attention to these issues. This is why Google has decided to not just informally help non-profit organizations, but have now set up an official organization of dedicated people, technical resources, and more available to non-profit organizatins to leverage Google Earth for their causes. That is what Google Earth Outreach is about. He then described the many useful resources they have made available at the new web site including showcases of other efforts, case studies on the process of development, and video tutorials on how to create powerful KML presentations.
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Introducing Google Earth Outreach – New Global Awareness Layers
Today Google has announced a new initiative called Google Earth Outreach designed to help nonprofit organizations around the world leverage the power of Google Earth to illustrate and advocate for the important work that they do. The announcement was made at the New York City Google office by Elliot Schrage, Google Vice President for Global Communications & Public Affairs, and John Hanke, Director of Google Earth & Maps. The initial Outreach partners include: Jane Goodall, Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute; Kathy Bushkin Calvin, Executive Vice President, United Nations Foundation; and Edward Wilson, President and CEO, Earthwatch.
Google Earth Outreach enables any organization to quickly and easily get the resources it needs to create compelling stories through Google Earth layers. The program includes comprehensive online guides, video tutorials, and case studies about using Google Earth specifically targeted to the needs of nonprofit organizations. In addition, there are online forums connecting new participants to Global Awareness partners and experienced programmers who can assist in developing Keyhole Markup Language (KML) layers for Google Earth. These forums, actively moderated by Google Earth Outreach staff, serve to foster discussion and cooperation among organizations and the broader Google Earth community. More information is available from the new Google Earth Outreach web page.
Jane Goodall has already leveraged Google Earth for the Jane Goodall Institute’s pioneering geoblog called the Gombe Chimpanzee Blog. The blog documents the activities at the Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania, site of the longest-running field study of wild chimpanzee. Every post at the blog is geotagged and viewable through Google Earth – as well as other helpful information about the site. Google began highlighting the Chimpanzee layer as a “Featured Content” layer last fall. Being featured in this way draws a lot of attention because of the huge world-wide audience available with over 200 million people having installed Google Earth. This kind of exposure helps any organization get more attention for their efforts.
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