Coming soon for Internet Explorer and Firefox is Click2Map, another tool using the Google Maps protocols. They’re still in beta, but soon they will be releasing a stable version. The purpose of the software is to allow you to create your own Google Maps with your own points of interest marked, without having to write any lines of code. I’ve used a similar service in the past, but it was a huge pain to make new markers, and Click2Map is much easier - the user interface is so much more friendly!

A feature I really like about Click2Map is the ability to publish to a webpage. When I was on Diet to Go, I created a custom map (on that other site) that showed all the DC-area pickup locations. This was helpful to me so that if I was going to be somewhere other than my normal pickup location, I could easily spot what the nearest or most accessible pickup location would be. I think other people could have made use of the map I made, but I had no way to share it. On Click2Map, when you create a webpage from your map, you can specify all kinds of options like how big the zoom controls should be, the width and height of the map, and even whether dragging is allowed. They publish the result to their own site, but it looks like there is an option coming in the future for a widget so you can publish to your own site.

There are a couple of features I would like to see added to Click2Map, though I’m not sure if they’re possible using the Google Maps API. First, it would be awesome to get driving directions from one point to another (and possibly on from there, multi-stop directions), and second I’d love to see the ability to publish walking routes like the Gmap Pedometer can create. If they could add those features, this would be the ultimate third party Google Maps application.

I just have to share this, because I am so totally thrilled about it. Ladies and gentlemen, today I am twice as close to being on Cute Overload as I will ever get.

If you saw my quicklinks in the past day or two, you may have noticed the scuba diving cat video that I personally captioned, including two minor errors that I don’t feel an urge to fix. It took me about 45 minutes to caption the one-minute video, because I kept having to start at the beginning to make sure everything was still in sync. Now, I know there are multiple editions of the scuba kitty video on Google Video. But only one of them is captioned, and the two posts from CO both include the captions. (It’s also up on CuteCast.)

No, it’s not me in the video. No, I don’t know the cat. But you know what? That is as damn close to being on Cute Overload as I will ever get, and I’m totally stoked. So there.

I was watching In the Life and they had a sound bite from Malcolm Lazin, the organizer of PrideFest Philadelphia. I thought the name sounded familiar from a scandal that took place about six years ago, so I googled for malcolm lazin mmow. Google wanted to know…

Did you mean: malcolm lazin mmorpg

Bwahaha.

I found the very interesting (but rather incomplete) Google Hacks page, and the Google Talk hack looked like fun: “Ever wondered what Google would say if it could talk? Wonder no more. Enter three or four words and Google will finish your thoughts by searching for what comes next after these words.” So I went to Google Talk and entered my first three words as do you think. Here is the result, click to enlarge: