The Official Google Blog has announced a new feature in Google Maps called My Maps.

It is described as:

…a new feature that makes it quick and easy to create your own custom Google Maps just by pointing and clicking. You can add placemarks, draw lines and shapes, and embed text, photos and videos — all using a simple drag and drop interface.

Developers have been able to do this kind of thing using the Google Maps API for some time, but this is the first step Google are taking to make this kind of customisation available to the average user within the web interface.

After going into Google Maps, you simply click on the My Maps tab on the left and you have the option to create a new map. After signing in with a Google Account, you can then quite easily go about marking places on the map with pushpins, draw lines and add shapes.

It’s quite a nice feature, but I can’t help thinking that all it is just bringing one of the features of Google’s desktop Google Earth client to the web interface. With Google Earth, you can already create your own custom maps and add your own placemarks. Your places are then saved on your computer in the KML format.

The real difference between the Google Earth mapping tools and the new My Map feature of Google Maps is that Maps saves your data on Google’s servers and binds it to your Google Account, whereas Earth stores data on your computer.

One thing that does irritate me slightly is that you can only export Public maps to KML format so that you can then import them into Google Earth. Unlisted maps don’t have any export features as far as I can see.

Still, it is quite nice to be able to make maps on the fly from anywhere, not just computers where Google Earth is installed and to be able to share them with others more easily.