As of this morning, Google has announced a new Geosearch API that can be programatically accessed rather than just accessed visually (via Google Maps or Google Earth).

However, it seems that this API can only be accessed using their Javascript browser-based API, which renders this API less than useful for most server-side applications. Without any insight into how their search result rankings really work (other than the notion that they generally work much the same as Page Rank), it also seems to me that the results will likely be the kind of irrelevant stuff we’ve come to expect from GeoSearch.

Also this morning Google introduced a partnership with ESRI to make available a large quantity of government-collected GIS data.  This could enable all kind of interesting combinations…  This information is supposed to be available in about 4 weeks and I think we’ll see a big explosion of new projects when that is available.

Last night Google introduced their Friend Connect API at an event called Campfire One (not here). This combined with their GeoSearch could produce some interesting results.  There will be a lot of things to play with at WhereCamp this weekend!