What was hot on the web this week? Get up to speed on the latest trends, news and services with some of our favorite new stories.
Google Maps Launches 3D Photo Tours To Fly You Around Famous Landmarks
St. Mark’s Basilica (Italy)
Google has given life to more than 15,000 landmarks across the world with the release of photo tours for Google Maps.
Photo tours offer users a three-dimensional view of thousands of famous destinations such as St. Mark’s Basilica in Italy, Half Dome in Yosemite and the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Accessible from the Maps left-hand panel or landmark labels, the tours virtually fly users around the world to historic and memorable locations using photos publicly on Picasa and Panoramio (a Google-owned community site for photos of places). The tours are constructed by stitching together photos with computer vision technologies.
Read more here.
Workout Spots Wants To Be The OpenTable For Fitness
Workout Spots is hoping to bring the popular “OpenTable for x” approach to the world of fitness.
The goal is to help people find nearby gyms and to register for classes at those gyms. The interface is fairly simple – you just enter your zip code, how far you’re willing to travel, whether you’re looking for a “spot” or a class, and, in the latter case, what type of class you’re looking for, and then you get a list of results. Once you find the class you want to take, you can register for the class directly from the Workout Spots site.
There’s also a social component. You can see who else is taking a class and, with the calendar option, you can see what your friends are taking and send messages to coordinate classes.
The site is free for both businesses and users.
Read more here.
Facebook Launches Its Support Dashboard To Strengthen Its Community Support
User support really has never been a strong suit of Facebook. Many users feel as though they’re submitting their suggestions or complaints into a black hole. Facebook is trying to change that.
The company announced some upgrades to strengthen its ties with the Facebook community. Facebook has launched what it calls a “Support Dashboard,” which will let users track all of the requests they’ve submitted.
To make sure the community feels safe and secure, the company will track all incoming requests and provide a new level of transparency for users to see the issue all the way through. This could be a simple request or a report of harassment or other safety-related issues.
This is a major shift for Facebook, as it promises to update the status on all submissions, giving users the ability to see why an action was or wasn’t taken.
Read more here.
LinkedIn iPad App Now Available For Mobile Professionals
LinkedIn has finally launched an iPad app (seriously, what took them so long?).
The company says users often log on to the site through their iPads in the early morning to prepare for meetings and in the evening, on the couch. The slick new iPad app is designed to target these people with a calendar function and other features optimized for the device. Before, users had to use Safari or the iPhone app (which isn’t optimized for iPad) on the iPad to access LinkedIn.
The new app lets users view their profile, see updates from their connections and add meetings to their calendar.
Read more here.
