5 Great Chrome Web Store Apps + Maps

Last week we opened the Chrome Web Store, an online marketplace where users can discover thousands of web apps, extensions, and themes for Google Chrome. With millions of people already using Chrome, the Web Store is a great platform for developers to generate both exposure and revenue for their applications.

Many of these Chrome Apps are utilizing our Geo APIs. Here we’ve highlighted 5 great Chrome apps using Google Maps API.


TripTrace

TripTrace organizes all the important places that you’ve been to or think you might want to visit; perfect for local exploration or vacation planning. Photos, events, and news are merged with your personal address book, check-ins, bookmarked web pages and more.


Wikihood

Wikihood World Browser gives users with a unique way to browse and discover knowledge. By organizing Wikipedia articles geographically, users can quickly find information about a given location on the map. Wikihood makes browsing even easier by providing a short synopsis of an article on the left side when the article’s geolocation is selected on the map.


Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs is a great GPS management tool. Users can visualize, organize, edit, and share GPS data collected from any GPS enabled device (including Android devices!). Breadcrumbs is also integrated with the Google Earth API for 3D visualizations.


Delta Embark

Whether you’re planning your next vacation, trying to find a restaurant on your next business trip, or just looking for some travel inspiration this Chrome optimized travel guide is a delight to use. Travel planning made fun and easy, brought to you by Delta Airlines!


Weatherbug

Don’t be late to Grandma’s this holiday season! Weatherbug let’s you view your weather and get the latest local current conditions, forecast, traffic information, and more for thousands of locations around the world.

To learn more about adding your apps to the Chrome Web Store, check out our developer documentation about apps and the store.

Posted by Carlos Cuesta, Maps API Product Marketing Manager



Santa Claus is coming to Google Earth

It’s that time of year again, and NORAD is once again preparing their very popular “Santa Tracker” to follow Santa around the world on Christmas Eve. The new 2010 site has just gone live in preparation for the holiday.

Last year’s tracker was astoundingly popular, with over 13 million people from 231 countries visiting the NoradSanta.org site, and I’d expect that number to keep growing every year.

Santa Tracker

Of course, the actual tracker doesn’t go live until December 24. In the meantime, they introduce new games every day in “Santa’s Village“. They tend to be rather simple games (yesterday was tic-tac-toe), but the music and environment add some fun if you play them with your kids.

NORAD (and its predecessor, CONAD) have been tracking Santa every year since 1955. The addition of tools such as Google Earth and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have only served to help increase the spread the of this fun tradition. To keep up with the latest happenings from the North Pole, you can join their Facebook Page (with a remarkable 386,000 fans) or follow them on twitter at @NoradSanta.

My girls will certainly be following along this year, as they had a great time watching him last year. How about you? Did you follow along last year with your kids? Looking forward to doing it again?

(via Lat Long Blog)