Time Travelling with Google Maps

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Let me take you on a journey, back through time, to the France of the 18th century. In the coastal town of St Tropez news that The Sun King Louis XIV has just arrived and the people ... 

Actually forget me - let La France en Relief transport you back to 18th century France instead.

La France en Relief is an amazing collection of historical relief maps of French towns.That in itself would be enough to get map fanatics like me excited. However La France en Relief has gone even further and have taken a number of the featured relief maps and turned them into full 3d cities. In loving detail the city's buildings have been recreated in 3d, allowing users to immerse themselves in the France of the 18th and 19th centuries.

So far eight towns have been created in 3d, including St Tropez, Toulon and Mont Saint Michel. The 3d map of Mont Saint Michel is worth the ticket price on its own - except there is no ticket price and there are also seven more 3d towns to explore.

Google Maps for Cognition

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I do like it when developers use custom images with the Google Maps API. However a lot of attempts to use the Google Maps API to navigate custom images don't really take advantage of the many features of the API to add interactivity to otherwise static images.

That isn't true of this map of the human brain that includes a number of options to add custom polylines on top of the brain to illustrate a number of cognitive processes.

Cognitive Consilience is a Google Map that was created to accomapny a Frontiers in Neuroanatomy publication "Cognitive consilience: Primate non-primary neuroanatomical circuits underlying cognition", by Soren Solari and Rich Stoner.

The map uses a custom image in Google Maps to help show cortical circuits in the brain. The map includes a number of overlays that can be added to the brain diagram to show the processes involved in consolidated long-term declarative memory, short-term declarative memory, working memory/information processing, behavioral memory selection, behavioral memory output, cognitive control and cortical information flow regulation.

Also See

• The KESM Brain Atlas - maps of mouse brains that can be viewed using the Google Maps interface.
• Brain Neural Maps - Brown University's two-dimensional neural image maps of the brain
• NYU School of Medicine Virtual Microscope - the Virtual Microscope uses the Google Maps API to display and navigate scanned slides of microscopic images
• Genome Projector - a searchable database browser that uses the Google Maps API to provide a zoomable user interface for molecular biology
• Zygote Body - a body browser that uses a Google Maps type interface to explore the human body

The Biggest Street View Update Yet

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Catherine Palace

Google Maps has today announced its biggest Street View update ever, adding over 250,000 miles of panoramic imagery to roads around the world.

New Street View imagery has been rolled out in Macau, Singapore, Sweden, the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Italy, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway and Canada. Special Collections of off-road imagery has also been added in South Africa, Japan, Spain, France, Brazil and Mexico.

The Google Lat Long blog has picked out some highlights, including the Catherine Palace and Ferapontov Monastery in Russia, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taiwan, or Stanley Park in Vancouver. You can even walk through the urban jungle of Singapore's Fort Canning Park, without ever leaving home.

There are obviously going to be a lot of surprises in this new release of Street View. In the US I think the Street Views in Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags St Louis, and Kings Island (Cincinnati) are new. In the UK Shepperton Studios and Pinewood Studios now also have Street View.

Time Zones for the Google Maps API

Google has also added today a new Time Zone API to the Google Maps API Web Services. The API returns information about the time zone of any location on earth. The response contains information such as the IANA Time Zone ID, long form name, offset from UTC and any offset due to daylight savings.

Developers can access the API up to 2,500 requests per day, while Google Maps API for Business customers make 100,000 requests. Full documentation is available on the Google Developers website.

Some Friday Fun with Google Maps

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Artist Rheinhard King has created a number of prints featuring large cities floating in the sky. The prints transpose cities like New York and London into Laputian like floating islands.


Do you know the way to Sesame Street?
Why yes. Yes I do. 
I have Google Maps.


Halloween has come a little early this year on Google Maps Street View. This indoor Street View of Monster Mini Golf in Marlboro, NJ is not for the faint of heart.

Via:  Street View Funny

Share Your Favorite Places with Google Maps

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Placeling is a neat location sharing application that allows users to share locations with friends across different platforms.

One of the neatest features of Placeling is that it allows users to save their favorite locations, create tours and then access and share the created Google Maps via the web, on a smartphone or on a WordPress blog.

Users can bookmark locations anywhere in the world, describe places with notes and photographs and even create their own tours.Locations and tour maps can be viewed or shared on the web, accessed from a smartphone app or even embedded in a blog post.

Placeling also allows users to ask questions about locations, such as "Where can I get the best coffee in Toronto?' or 'Where is the best pizza in New York?' and other Placeling users can help with their answers and suggestions.

5 Questions with Nirvan Mullick, the man behind 'Caine's Arcade'

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Q: How did the Caine's Arcade video catch fire? Did you have a distribution strategy in place or was it all organic? 
A: It was a mix. While making the film, I put together a flashmob invitation to surprise Caine with customers. The flashmob invitation went mini-viral, hitting reddit’s front page and HiddenLA’s facebook page. This brought Caine a global community of supporters that were waiting for the film to be finished. Once the film was finished, I submitted a follow up link to reddit and also sent the link to BoingBoing. BoingBoing re-posted the film right away, and it hit the front page of reddit shortly after. Then it just took off.

Q: What was the reaction of Caine & his family once the video became so popular and viewers donated hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to a college fund? 

A: None of us were expecting that level of response. I had been hoping to raise $25,000 for Caine’s Scholarship Fund over the course of maybe a year... the first day we raised over $100k. Caine’s dad was in tears, overwhelmed by phone calls from parents and media around the world; he had never experienced that level of kindness from strangers, who put together a college fund for his son overnight. George was the proudest dad in the world. Meanwhile, Caine couldn’t really process how much money had been donated- he just knew it was a lot. But he was super excited to have so many customers visiting his arcade. The first weekend after the film went viral, over a thousand people showed up to play. There was a 4 hour line stretching around the block. 5 months later, people still come every day from around the world. It’s amazing.

Q: Tell us about the Imagination Foundation. Was it always something you had hoped to launch or did it originate solely from the video? 

A: The formation of the foundation was inspired by the global response to the video. After the film went viral, I didn’t sleep the first 2 days. The response was overwhelming, and I was trying to take it all in and absorb as much of the feedback as I could. I got emails from thousands of people, including videos from kids around the world sharing their creativity. I began to think about ways that this project could transition from helping Caine to helping other kids as well. On the third day, I wrote the mission statement for the Imagination Foundation on a napkin: to find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in more kids like Caine. While the Imagination Foundation wasn’t something I’d planned before the film, I have worked in the non-profit space for the past 12 years, and have always been interested in the intersection of media and social change. So when this happened, I knew there was an lightning-in-a-bottle opportunity to try and make something that could have an impact for more kids. Two days after I wrote the mission statement, I connected with the Goldhirsh Foundation, who recognized the opportunity to make an impact and put up a $250,000 Matching Challenge Grant (matching public donations to Caine's Scholarship Fund dollar-for-dollar) to help us start the Imagination Foundation. To date, we have raised $215k of the goal.

Q: How do you intend to use video going forward to tell the story of the Global Cardboard Challenge? 

A: I met Caine by chance when I went to buy a door handle. But there are so many more kids like Caine out there. We started the Imagination Foundation to build a discovery platform to help find amazing stories of creative kids like Caine, and to then share those stories with the world. With the Global Cardboard Challenge, we are inviting filmmakers and storytellers around the world to document local Cardboard Challenge events on video, and to then share those videos with us so we can celebrate the creativity of kids everywhere. Send us your videos by October 13th and we will have some cool prizes and opportunities to share the videos with our community. As we build our community further, we plan to continue using video to share inspiring stories of creative kids around the world while inspiring creative actions in line with our mission.

Q: Do you have any advice for fellow filmmakers who are looking to drive awareness for causes they care about? 

A: I think it is really important to be authentic and personal, and to find the details that communicate the heart of your story. It’s also important to have a clear call to action, and to keep it simple and engaging. The success of videos like Kony 2012 (30min) and Caine’s Arcade (11 minutes) show that videos don’t need to be super short to keep people’s attention. If your story is strong, your audience will stay with you, and you can take the time you need to tell your story. That said, don’t make it a second longer than it needs to be.

Arthur Woods, YouTube partner operations associate, recently watched "John Hockenberry: We are all designers"

Improving Content ID

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*Updated on 10/4: In the third paragraph we've clarified that potentially invalid claims are manually reviewed by the content owner.*

In the nearly five years since we launched Content ID, it has helped everyone from large media companies to up-and-coming creators manage their content when it appears on YouTube. More than 3,000 content owners have supplied more than 500,000 hours of reference files to the system. Content ID hasn’t stood still over the last five years. We’ve been rolling out regular updates and we want to highlight three particular efforts that we think improve Content ID for everyone.

A New Appeals Process
Users have always had the ability to dispute Content ID claims on their videos if they believe those claims are invalid. Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute. When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.

Smarter Detection of Unintentional Claims
Content owners have uploaded more than ten million reference files to the Content ID system. At that scale, mistakes can and do happen. To address this, we’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed by the content owner. This process prevents disputes that arise when content not owned by a partner inadvertently turns up in a reference file.

Smarter claim detection minimizes unintentional mistakes. Of course, we take action in rare cases of intentional misuse, up to and including terminating Content ID access.

Improved Matching Quality
At the heart of Content ID is the matching technology that identifies partners’ content among all the videos on YouTube. Earlier this year we introduced a significant improvement to how the matching happens. We continue to work on ways to make the matching more precise through better algorithms and a more comprehensive reference library.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but we believe that these are significant steps forward in our efforts to keep YouTube a vibrant place where the rights of both content owners and users are protected and everyone can control their original content and make money from it - money which can be put towards the production of more great content.

For now, keep on watching, upload a video or two and please, please keep the feedback coming.

Thabet Alfishawi, Rights Management Product Manager, recently watched/danced to "Psy - Gangnam Style"

Supersonic freefall from the edge of space to Earth, live on YouTube

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This Monday, the launch window opens for aviation pioneer Felix Baumgartner to freefall from the edge of space back to Earth, hoping to break the speed of sound with nothing but his body and a parachute on the way down—live on Red Bull’s YouTube Channel. The mission aims to collect scientific data for the advancement of aerospace safety.

”All systems are a go” for The Red Bull Stratos Mission starting 6:00am PT on October 8. Since freefalling from space requires perfect weather conditions, the full launch window extends for two weeks. To find the exact time of the launch, check the Red Bull YouTube Channel or sign up for email updates at redbullstratos.com.



How it works
The 120,000 foot jump over Roswell, New Mexico is the culmination of over five years of work by Felix and the Red Bull Stratos mission team, who are now prepared to break the 102,800 ft record set by US Air Force legend, Col. Joe Kittinger 52 years ago. After rising in a capsule propelled by 30 million cubic feet of helium, Felix will jump from 23 miles above Roswell, New Mexico. You’ll see a live data feed that will show exactly where Felix is in the sky, his rate of speed during the freefall, and how high above earth he is throughout the entire flight. You’ll also be able to hear Felix’s conversations with Col. Kittinger who will be the only voice from Mission Control advising Felix.

Enjoy the ride.

Tim Katz, Sports Partnerships Manager, recently watched “Supersonic Freefall - Red Bull Stratos CGI.”

New features for teachers

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It’s World Teachers’ Day, and to honor the hard-working and talented people in front of classrooms everywhere, we’ve put together some new resources to make YouTube even more useful for learning. (Oh, and we’re celebrating teachers in the YouTube logo today too! Check it out!).

First, we’ve created a special YouTube EDU Creator Playbook Guide (download it here), full of video best practices for online educators to learn from each other. The Guide suggests ideas for organizing curriculum videos on YouTube, attracting a bigger audience to your educational content, and explains how to use YouTube features like annotations and playlists to make educational channels more interactive.

Second, we asked James Sanders, KIPP Bay Area Innovation manager (and former YouTube teacher-in-residence), to create a presentation on 10 ways teachers can use YouTube to build a 21st century classroom. It’s full of great, proven ideas for using YouTube to bring educational topics to life. For more advice, and playlists of educational videos visit YouTube.com/Teachers.

Today we also hit a great milestone at YouTube EDU - more than 1000 educational channels to learn from. So whether you’re a teacher looking to make physics more fun, an art student looking for inspiration, or a parent needing help with algebra homework, there’s a channel on YouTube EDU for you.

If you create great educational content and are interested in having your channel added to YouTube EDU, you can nominate your channel here.

And to teachers everywhere - thank you for all you do!

Arthur Woods, YouTube EDU team, recently watched “Dan Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation”.

Austin City Limits: Live on YouTube all weekend

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If you’re craving one last taste of summer, Austin City Limits is it: the perfect cap to a season of music festivals. If you can’t make it to Zilker Park this year, you can still imbibe the goodness -- all you need is a laptop. Starting today, YouTube will bring you a live webcast at youtube.com/aclfestival, in partnership with C3 Presents, powered by Dell. Choose between two packed channels of music all weekend; the webcast kicks off at 11:30am PT.



The lineup is, if we can be immodest, stellar. Jack White and his hat. Florence Welch and her Machine. Iggy and his Stooges. You can snag time with headliners you’d never get so close to in real life, including The Roots, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Childish Gambino. Or check out rising indie sensations like Kimbra, Polica and Alt-J. Don’t know all the acts? Check out our playlist 10 Must-See Bands @ACL.



Canadian duo Tegan and Sara, newly back after a hiatus, even want you in the mix (they made their own video invitation) -- and The Shins shared a playlist of their favorite music for the occasion. So mark your calendars and cancel all your other plans; we’ve got you covered this weekend. Head to youtube.com/aclfestival at 11:30am PT and let the music play.

Sarah Bardeen, music community manager, recently watched “Carla Morrison | Valentina-Compartir | A Take-Away Show.”

YouTube’s original channels go global

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A lot has happened since we announced nearly 100 new original channels coming to YouTube: 7-year-old Ruby taught Amy Poehler about feminism. Rainn Wilson interviewed Deepak Chopra in the back of a mysterious van, and Phil DeFranco’s SourceFed became one of the hottest comedy news shows on the Web or TV. What do all these moments have in common? They’re being created for you on YouTube. And, when we look at the numbers, you’re liking what you watch:

• Our top 25 original channels are now averaging over a million views every week
• 800 million of you are watching 4 billion hours every month, that’s up from 3 billion hours earlier this year
• The number of people subscribing has doubled y/y
• And partners this year are reaching the 100k subscriber mark 5x faster than they were just two years ago

Given the success of these and the tens of millions of other amazing channels already out there, we still know there’s more great content to find, follow and fall in love with on YouTube. That’s why today, we’re excited to launch a new generation of original channels coming from France, Germany, the UK and the US.

From local cuisine, health and wellness and parenting to sports, music, comedy, animation and news, this new lineup of original channels will have something for everyone. They are backed by some of the biggest producers, well-known celebrities and emerging media companies from Europe and the U.S.

You can get a sneak peek of the all the coming new channels here. So go and find something to love and stay tuned as this new generation of channels roll out in the months ahead.

Robert Kyncl, VP, Global Head of Content

5 Questions with Chris Carver, Chief Operating Officer of Invisible Children

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On March 5 of this year, Invisible Children uploaded “Kony 2012” to their YouTube channel. Today, the video has over 93 million views and has made Joseph Kony a household name. We caught up with Chris Carver, Chief Operating Officer of the organization to learn more about how Kony got to be such a viral sensation, the action (and controversy) it inspired, and their new documentary, “MOVE.”

1. KONY 2012 was the most viral nonprofit video ever on YouTube. What is your outreach strategy when putting out a new video?

We’re a grassroots movement so we first reach out to the supporter base we've developed over the past 9 years. A big part of Invisible Children's model is to tour our documentaries for free in schools, colleges and churches throughout North America. We do two tours a year, reaching around 500,000 students each tour. Prior to KONY2012, we had done 14 tours, with over 13,500 free screenings to over 5M students. There are over 500 Invisible Children clubs around the country, and we’ve put on 5 international events with over 400,000 people in attendance. I mention all of this to show how much importance we place on face-to-face interaction. The offline experience is just as important (if not more) than the online experience. Our supporters are truly the catalyst for getting our/their message out and we invest a lot of time cultivating these young, amazing leaders via phone, email, livestream, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

There are so many other factors we consider as part of the outreach strategy when putting out a new film: From the importance of strong branding and design, to clear and concise copy that's synchronized across all platforms, to making sure everything has a very clear call to action.

2. Your new documentary tells the story of Kony. What was your motivation behind putting out this documentary? Why now?

Actually, all of our documentaries focus on Joseph Kony and the LRA in some form or another (11 films total). I think we all got to the point where telling the same type of story year after year wasn’t resulting in the amount of awareness about Kony that was needed to put international pressure on him.

In putting out KONY 2012, we told the story differently. We felt that after 26 years of child abductions, terrible atrocities and mass displacement in central Africa, the time had come for Kony to become famous. Not to celebrate him, but to bring his crimes to light. Although we far exceeded what we ever could have imagined in terms of view count and awareness, we know that seeing a permanent end to LRA violence is going to take much more than that. It is going to take a continued awareness, continued mobilization, more protection of communities from LRA violence and more recovery programs to rehabilitate, educate and create jobs for people affected by LRA violence.

Our new documentary, MOVE, goes behind-the-scenes to tell the story of the KONY 2012 whirlwind, how we made an African warlord famous, and how we’re going to challenge our generation to take a stand for international justice.

3. There were more than 40k videos uploaded to YouTube in response to KONY 2012. Were you able to engage with any of these folks? Did the volume of video replies surprise you?

To be entirely honest, I think almost everything about this campaign was initially surprising. Millions of people responded and our infrastructure couldn't handle the response. I take responsibility for this, but I'm not sure anyone could see this coming. As a result, people couldn't get any context for who Invisible Children was. So although we love the fact that so many people responded with more videos (extending the conversation), it was a loss that we couldn't respond back. We've always tried to make our various platforms a two-way conversation, but we just weren't set up for this much volume.

4. How did the KONY 2012 viewership translate into offline action?
KONY 2012 was/is an awareness campaign, and the international community responded with the most intense period of global engagement in the history of the LRA conflict:

• March 5: The film went live
• March 21: the KONY 2012 legislation was introduced in the Senate
• March 23: the African Union (AU) and United Nations (UN) announced that 5,000 troops will pursue Kony
• April 19: the European Union (EU) pledged their support
• April 20: Cover The Night promoted global awareness & service
• April 23: President Obama extended the deployment of U.S. military advisers to help stop the LRA
• May 12: the Ugandan army captures Major Caesar Achellam, one of the top commanders in the LRA
• May 24: U.S. Senate State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee approves $10,000,000 for humanitarian aid in LRA-affected communities
• June 26: Invisible Children delivered 3.7 Million KONY 2012 pledges to the United Nations
• June 29: the AU & UN released their strategy to combat the LRA
• July 31: U.S. Senate Defense Appropriations Committee approves $50,000,000 for intelligence and surveillance of LRA activity
• August 2: the KONY 2012 resolution that was introduced on March 21 passes the Senate by unanimous consent

On November 17, we’re encouraging thousands of supporters to gather for the largest global summit on the LRA in history. Participants will hear directly from the top 10 global leaders on the LRA conflict, surround the White House for a demonstration of unity, and end the evening by celebrating human connectivity through the universal language of dance.




5. KONY 2012 and MOVE are both quite a bit longer than the average YouTube video - how did you decide that a longer video was right for this subject?

For the past 9 years and subsequent 14 tours, we developed our films to be distributed in person. KONY 2012 was the first film that we released online, and its length was determined by how much time it took to tell the story. Because we knew it was longer than most online videos, we were strategic in making sure that every second held your attention, had a strong storyline, and was less than 30 minutes (clocked in at 29:59).

We took the same approach for MOVE and hope people who watch this time, share the film with the same idea as the first. Where you live should not determine whether you live and we have a responsibility to protect those that cannot protect themselves.


Ramya Raghavan, YouTube for Good team, recently watched “Protection Plan”

YouTube’s keynote at MIPCOM: Building your audience on YouTube

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Yesterday, YouTube's Vice President and Global Head of Content, Robert Kyncl, delivered the Media Mastermind Keynote at the MIPCOM conference in Cannes, France. Robert was then joined on stage by Alex Mahon, CEO Shine Group, Peter Tortorici, CEO and Chairman of GroupM Entertainment, and Yair Landau, Partner at MK Capital for a panel discussion moderated by MediaLink’s Chairman and CEO Michael Kassan. It was standing room only in the auditorium, so we thought we’d give you an opportunity to hear and see Robert’s presentation for yourself.



While the speech and subsequent discussion were geared towards the content creators and distributors in the audience, we wanted to share it with you as it paints a broader picture of our long-term strategy to bring more great content to love on YouTube. You can also find a full transcript of Robert’s speech here.

Let us know what you think of the speech in the comments below.

The YouTube Team

Introducing our October “On The Rise” candidates

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YouTube’s On The Rise program introduces four partners each month whose channels are growing but haven’t yet reached the 100,000 subscriber mark. Our October nominees have already established themselves strongly on YouTube, and we wanted to share their varied artistic talents with you to help them build an even stronger network of support as they work to build their YouTube presence.

One of these candidates will have the opportunity to be featured on the YouTube homepage later this month, so they need your help. Check out the videos below and vote for your favorite partner channel here. In addition to your votes, each channel will be evaluated on criteria such as viewer engagement and channel optimization techniques to decide which partner will be featured on the homepage, Google+, Facebook and Twitter at the end of the month.

In past months, featured On The Rise partners like thevfxbro and GoneToTheSnowDogs have gained many subscribers and seen their careers take off, thanks to your support. This month’s poll will be open until October 17, 5pm PT, so check these channels out and vote for your favorite, and then see which partner is featured on the homepage on October 25.

RichardGaleFilms
A three-time Emmy winner, Richard Gale has written and directed hundreds of cable TV programs and thriller films that received critical acclaim worldwide. His YouTube channel features videos from some of his most successful projects, including his most recent awad-winning short film, ‘The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon.’



calliemooremusic
Callie Moore was 12 when she first learned to play the guitar, and she wrote her first song that same day. In the years since, she’s continued to develop her sound and is currently recording her second full album at home with her husband. You can find samples of her music as well as vlogs on her YouTube channel.



lover4FASHION
Stay up to date on the latest hair and fashion trends with videos from Fash’s channel. She has over 100 videos on makeup reviews, outfits of the day, and highly requested hair tutorials.



docjazz4
David has been playing the ocarina (a flute-like instrument) since 1999. He shares his love of music through covers and original pieces on his channel and also teaches his viewers how to read sheet music for the instrument.



If you’re interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners.

Devon Storbeck and Christine Wang, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “The Ohio State University Marching Band - TBDBITL Halftime 10-6-12 Video games Nebraska.”

The 2012 Vice Presidential Debate, tonight on YouTube

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Last week, you made the first Presidential Debate of 2012 one of YouTube's biggest live-stream events ever. Tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET, tune in as we live stream the first and only Vice Presidential debate on the YouTube Election Hub.

Congressman Paul Ryan, the Republican nominee, will square off against Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, for 90 minutes live from Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. The debate will cover both foreign and domestic topics.

Over the years, the Vice Presidential debate has featured many memorable moments, from Bob Dole’s reference to the Carter-Mondale ticket courting the “bunny vote” (1976), to Lloyd Bentsen’s characterization of Dan Quayle as “no Jack Kennedy” (1988), to Dick Cheney advising John Edwards that the debate was “the first time I ever met you” (2004).

Whatever tonight’s “Drill Baby Drill” moment will be, you’ll see it unfold live here on YouTube.



And if you can’t tune in tonight at 9 p.m. ET, we’ve got you covered. The full debate and highlights will be available for viewing at youtube.com/politics shortly after the debate concludes.


Ward Bullard, YouTube Elections Team, recently watched Electoral College 101

Water Quality Displayed with Google Maps

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APEL Carte Interactive uses Google Maps to visualise water quality data in the watershed of the St. Charles River, Quebec.

Water quality is displayed on the map using different colors (blue for good, red for bad). If you click on a map marker two graphs load in the map sidebar illustrating annual and monthly trends at that location. A menu at the top of the map allows users to also view the results of different water quality readings, such as fecal coliform, phosphorous etc.

Google for Entrepreneurs goes to San Diego to empower veterans and military families

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In addition to all they do for their country overseas, service members are also a markedly entrepreneurial group: although veterans represent only 6% of the U.S. population, they account for an impressive 13.5% of all U.S. small business owners. This entrepreneurial spirit is contributing to business growth around the country, and last week we decided to head down to San Diego to see how Google for Entrepreneurs and Startup Weekend could help.

On August 9, Google for Entrepreneurs, along with the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families and Startup Weekend, hosted a series of events focused on giving business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs from the military community the training and tools they need to take advantage of the web to build and grow businesses. More than 200 service members learned about free tools to create a web site, track and measure their web presence and market their product or service.



Engaged and full of pride, the veteran-owned businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs came from across California. Misty Birchall, a Navy veteran and founder of PubCakes, delighted attendees when she gave us a taste of her passion for combining baking and craft beer. Marine Corps sergeant turned organic farmer Colin Archipley brought many participants from Veterans Sustainable Agriculture Training, an entrepreneurial incubator program he founded to help transitioning veterans train for careers in sustainable agriculture. Even the underdogs (and undercats) were well-represented—Precious Paw Prints, an online retailer selling creative pet accessories owned by Marine veteran Kiersten Carlin, shared that small business can win by providing a higher level of quality and service that larger brands cannot.

Over the following weekend, aspiring entrepreneurs from the veterans community attended the local Startup Weekend, where they formed teams to turn their idea ideas into products. By Sunday night, five teams had launched businesses.



Being a successful entrepreneur means having an appetite for risk, an ability to navigate ambiguity and a passion to get things done at all costs; it’s no mystery why such a large number of small businesses are started by veterans or service-disabled veterans. They certainly have what it takes to be entrepreneurs.

You can read more about our recent programs for members of the veterans’ community here.

Posted Bridgette Sexton, Global Entrepreneurship Manager