Google Earth, Now With Video

Google keeps finding new places for YouTube videos to live. After integrating video with AdSense earlier this week, it announced today that it will embed YouTube videos throughout Google Earth, where relevant.

This means any video that is geotagged will show up on that location in the desktop mapping app. This opens up lots of possibilities for travel videos and also small-business video advertising, which is gaining steam all over the place.

It seems there is an opportunity for any small business to upload a new or existing video ad to YouTube, geocode it with the precise location of the business and be among the first to get this prime map real estate before it gets too cluttered.

This functionality already exists in Google Maps, through the MyMaps personalization feature, but it requires users to upload videos to personalized maps. This latest YouTube integration has a lower barrier to build video overall content by having YouTube uploads geotagged for everyone to see (albeit, this will still see marginal adoption initially).

Greater video integration should be the next step in map mashups, which already exist in large numbers for more static media to be represented on a map in a thematic way (the Google Maps Mania blog does a good job chronicling these). Similar functionality also exists for Flickr photos to be geotagged and show up in Yahoo! Maps.

YouTube integration lowers the barrier for businesses (and anyone else) to get themselves and their videos on the map in a more intuitive way. With the growing popularity and portability of online video, it could begin to tie closer together with the process of online local search, and this is a step in that direction.
________

Related: Elsewhere in Google Maps, the company announced the addition of six new cities for Street View. Details and a new video from Google are here (that song is going to be stuck in my head all day).