This Bing Map lets you view historical maps of Berlin. The map features an innovative ‘timescope’ that you can drag over the modern map of Berlin whilst viewing the historical map through the timescope.
If you wish to view a different historical map of Berlin you can select a date from the bottom of the timescope. It is also possible to adjust the transparency of the historical map to view the modern map beneath. On the right hand side of the map are quick links to some of Berlin’s top sights.
In the past five years since Google purchased SketchUp (and then made it free), we’ve seen it receive a ton of improvements. Last fall saw the release of SketchUp 8, which added a bunch of great new features, and last month they released another update that provided SpaceNavigator support and a very helpful bug fix.
Despite all of that, there is still one feature missing that users are wanting — animation. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to animate your models from within SketchUp? Thanks to developer MorisDov and his “Proper Animation” plugin, now you can!
Check out the video below for a brief sample:
The plugin works by allowing you to create various positions for your model, and then those model moves to those various positions, creating the animation. It’s a very useful plugin, and I’m sure many SketchUp modelers will be thankful to MorisDov for creating it.
To get started, head over to his site, read this SketchUcation thread, or head over to the Google SketchUp Blog for a nice walk-through.
Have you tried this plug-in yet? What do you think of it?
Details about Google Places Hotel booking feature, first widely seen in November, are starting to leak out. Google has been somewhat reticent to make meaningful public comments and provide significant details about it. This Places feature allows users to select a booking date, click through from the Places Page and immediately begin the booking process.
It was reported yesterday at Travolution.co.uk, in an apparent press release, that Worldhotels was now offering the Google feature to its affiliate hotels:
Independent hotels can now post information including room rates on Google Maps and Google Places using Worldhotels.
The hotel group is the first of its kind to allow independent hotels to display their real time rates and availability on Google Maps and Places.
This pay-per-click ad model is connected with the groups booking engine. The first hotel to test the new pricing display option is the Worldhotels property Georgian Terrace in Atlanta, USA.
Worldhotels is a company that provides a marketing umbrella that allows independent hotels to maintain their uniqueness but take advantage of back room processes that benefit from scale like booking, rewards programs, negotiating better rates with online booking companies and now obviously, access to Google’s Pay Per Click hotel booking test.
Rather than give up between 25 and 50% of their booking fees to the online travel sites, independent hotels can join a group like Worldhotel for a very small percentage of each booking while additionally taking advantage of other programs like frequent visitor benefits that the affiliate organizer has to offer.
In the case of Google Places, the hotel noted in the press release, is offering a Petite Single Room for their discounted rate of $116 (the same room is $199 through their site) which is exactly the same as the Expedia/Travelocity price. The cost to the hotel is likely the 2% affiliate booking fee plus their AdWords cost vs the 15-25% that they would normally be paying to the online travel site. Thus they could be paying somewhere on the order of $4.50 for the booking versus $31 via the current system. This model, while still in its infancy, is likely to put pressure on the margins of the online travel booking sites.
Google has noted that they are also “exploring ways to allow individual hoteliers to easily share updated pricing / availability” which would mean that even hotels not in a franchise or otherwise affiliated would likewise be able to take advantage of the savings in such a system.
It will be interesting to discover how Google is pricing the pay per click ads in this model. What are the current costs of PPC for hotels in major markets?
Related posts: