Globes are afoot.

I guess one impact that Google Earth has already had is that people are starting to think about globes--well, they're starting to call things globes anyway. As I've been reading this break, it seems like Microsoft, ESRI, and company are all calling things 'world' or 'globe'. I'm not sure if there's anything that makes these services all of the same category. Or particularly globe-like. Maybe a world-wide extent?

But anyway, Google seems to be realizing that they can be having an impact geographic education.

And there's been a whole slew of new-stories and features about online mapping. Here's one of them.