Get notified when new photos of your area appear

We receive a lot of messages from users who ask when the photos of a particular area will be updated, and we are not able to answer these questions. However, even though we cannot learn in advance about such updates, Google has just released a new gadget called “Follow Your World”, which will alert you whenever the image of the territory (or several territories) you specify is updated.



This is an extremely simple device: it is enough to indicate your position on the map, give it a name, and they will send you an e-mail when they have new photos of this area. We are not yet sure how quickly they will begin to send e-mail, but we assume that this will happen after the transfer of photos to Google Maps, because people can use this device for both Google Earth and Google Maps. (As you could see from the photo updates we recently mentioned, new images first go to Google Earth, then appear on Google Maps a few days later.)
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It is not known whether Google will use this device as an aid in deciding where to update the image of the earth's surface in the future; but this seems unlikely. Before publication, new images go through many stages of processing . In addition, it is appropriate to assume that Google can fully observe the use of Earth and Maps, simply counting which square "tiles" of images are downloaded most often.

Several readers recently emailed us about this device, but from Google we were asked to hold on to this story until today, while they brought some elements of the device to perfection. Of course, we welcome these tips, so feel free to contact us if you find another site like this, or updated photos, or anything else about Google Earth that might interest everyone.

Then you can compare the presentation of this story with “Google Lat Long Blog ”, or just go to the website Follow Your World and try it yourself.