• Fortune, Friday, May 12, 2006 10:48 AM

One of my favorite Google apps is Google Earth, the Webby Award-winning 3-D map of the planet generated from digital satellite images. The coolest thing about Google Earth is that we know there are so many more things the search giant will do with it. We got an inkling as to what that might be at the end of last month, when Google released a free, popular 3-D modeling program called SketchUp. Apparently, Google is asking developers to build 3-D layers on top of Google Earth; it's even hosting a development page for them, called 3-D Warehouse. Is Google creating a virtual earth? I thought they might use it for enhanced local search, but it would seem as though Google intends to move into the virtual world biz--or massively multiplayer online gaming. To be sure, virtual worlds, like Second Life, have become a very real business. Not long ago, a Business Week story profiled a woman who quit her day job because her virtual clothing business on Second Life earns her in excess of $250,000 per year. You can already download user-generated layers that sit on top of Google Earth, and soon, you might be able to purchase avatars, or interactive personalities to control in the virtual world. Imagine Google earth ten years down the road. After all, it just might be Google's world that we'll be living in.

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