Look! It’s Chassell.

Downtown Chassell, MI from Google Maps

Downtown Chassell, MI from Google Maps

Yes, that’s right folks, this is a map of downtown Chassell, where I grew up. Okay, I didn’t actually grow up in Chassell, my parents’ house is outside of Chassell, on Paradise Road. Anyway, for those who’ve wondered how big the town is (anyone?), here’s a street map of the place.

Check out Google Maps. It’s where I pulled this image from. The interface is pretty slick. You can drag the map around, and it is quite smooth. Zooming in and out is smoother as well. It’s still in beta and won’t work in some browsers, but should work in most recent browsers (except Safari).

Great Google, Batman!

Fast Company magazine has a nice article on Google and the people and innovation behind it. One of the things that struck me about it was the recurring reference to Google’s respect for the user.

Google understands that its two most important assets are the attention and trust of its users. If it takes too long to deliver results or an additional word of text on the home page is too distracting, Google risks losing people’s attention. If the search results are lousy, or if they are compromised by advertising, it risks losing people’s trust. Attention and trust are sacrosanct.

Great stuff. Read the article.