Install Earth

As I’ve mentioned before, there is a giant community of Google Earth users.  So when you download Google Earth you are very far from alone.  There are support forums specifically for new users, for people who create 3D views for Google Earth, for historians, for astronomers, for the military, for environmental groups, historians, and more.

Some of these forums have been around longer than others, and some have more members than others.  I based my top 10 on the number of total posts in the forum.

Here you go, the top 10 most popular Google Earth forums, from 10 to 1:

10. Open Forum - This is like the “misc” drawer in your kitchen.  It’s for all conversations that don’t fall under another category.  Currently has 21,182 posts.

9. Google Earth (read only) - This is a support group for Google Earth and currently has 21,924 posts.

8. Nature and Geography forum - 27,005 posts.

7.  Sports and Hobbies forum - 33,226 posts.

6. Military forum (unmoderated)- for any and everything military-related - 41,751 posts.

5. Transportation forum is all about every method of transportation as it relates to Google Earth - 44,408 posts.

4. Fun and Games forum - The fun forum to post mystery placemarks, hints, problems to solve, etc. - 93,984 posts.

3. Travel Information forum is where you go to give and get advice about travel (hotels, restaurants, points of interest, etc.) 101,936 posts.

2. Member-centric Locations - “Where you live, went to school, work, or play.” came in 2nd with 111,909 posts

And the number one, most popular forum in the entire Google Earth community is…*drum roll*….

1. Earth Browsing “the primary forum for sharing and discussing places around the world.” with 262,213 posts!

Click here to see or join the community.

Technorati Tags: google earth, bbs keyhole, google earth community, top 10 lists

A Google Earth community member known as satishgsk has created a series for Google Earth called “The Extreme Series.” Basically, it’s a series of landmarks of earth which are the most extreme of their kind. Two recent examples are “Deepest cave” and “Largest flower”.

Satishgsk does research and finds these extremes of life, gets a ton of info and at least one really sweet photo, often from Wikipedia, and updates this information every day.

If you go to satishgsk’s page I linked to above, you’ll see his updates and also be able to load this Extreme Places into your Google Earth or into Google maps, if you prefer.

This probably isn’t something you’ll NEED to get by in life, but it’s real interesting and fun to check out. For more specifics on this series check out Frank Taylor’s Google Earth Blog post about it.

Technorati Tags: satishgsk, bbs keyhole, google earth community, google earth blog, frank taylor, extreme places

There are few things that I like most about the internet:

1. I can find out EVERYTHING I want to know and never lose sleep from not remembering a song title or the name of that actor in that movie, or whatever.  These are things that bug me if I don’t get the answers the INSTANT that I want them.  So as you can imagine, before the internet I slept less than I do now.  That’s true.

2. I can build, fix, do, undo, debug anything by searching on the internet for the answer.  This is a huge one for me too.  When I have computer problems, or cell phone problems, or want to know how to make LED throwies, or how to do a photo transfer onto canvas, this information is  all there somewhere on the internet and I find it.  Oh yes.

3. I am not alone.  I can find other people who share my problems, or just other people to talk to, social networking sites with like-minded folks, forums to ask questions or discuss issues about any/everything.  I have made some lifelong friends from the internet…people from all over the world who I would have never had contact with before.

And this brings me to the point of this post and how it relates to the subject of Google Earth.  Did you know that there are a TON of Google Earth forums that you can join, read, post to, find out information on, make friends, etc.?  There is a giant Google Earth community.  Some are technical for people who create imagery to be used on Google Earth, or create plug-ins that can be used with Google Earth.  Others are for new users.  There are history forums, geography forums, layers forums, current events forums.  There are a lot. And the point is that you are not alone when you download Google Earth.  You have millions of friends who you haven’t met yet, who all use Google Earth!

Want to find out more?  Go to the Google Earth Community! 

Technorati Tags: google earth community, bbs keyhole, google earth forums