Just yesterday we met up with the Harrimans for dinner at a BBQ place in the middle of Alpharetta called Smokejack (which in all seriousness has the absolute best pulled chicken BBQ sandwich I have ever had the pleasure of eating - but only on their lunch menu) so I was going to show Carr a few of the public places to park near the downtown Alpharetta area, there are a few places to park around the restaurant that are close (they also have a small child, so the closer the better) so I went on to Google Maps and made a marked up/annotated map showing the area where the parking was pretty easy.    Carr mentioned that he didn't know you could mark up maps and send it to people and I proceeded to tell him you could not only do that, but also if you want to get deeper into geo-visualizations of data you can mess around with the xml/layering in Google Earth (stand alone app) you can actually dynamically create the xml/layer files on the fly via code which creates dynamic overlays on the google earth.  I IM'd him this link, which shows Nine Inch Nails showing a visual representation of who all downloaded their album The Slip which was released a few weeks ago, and true to form Trent Reznor was cool enough to share their data (along with Top Spin, the company that handled the distribution) with the world and allow people to see it graphically on Google Earth.  This data was not only great to see just out of curiosity for me, but it also does give you a sense of how the band decides where they want to stop on their tour going on right now (Aug 13th at Gwinnett Arena for all you Atlanta peeps - see you there) and how data like this (and of course the ability to gather it in real time) effects decisions like tour stops.   Here are a few thumbs of some of the data as it is displayed in Google Earth:

  

also you can grab the KMZ file if you want to dl Google Earth (free).

Now comes the cool part that I read about this morning.  Suddenly yesterday a point showed up on the map that you are seeing above outside Burbank, the coordinates didn't say anything except 'under a rock' and that was it.  Someone then went out to this lat/long and their found a rock and low and behold picked it up and found, what else?  tickets to the NIN Los Angeles show.    From as I understand it these points are now popping up all over Cali and the treasure hunt is on.  Here is a description from an another article I read this morning:

On Monday night, I trespassed in Griffith Park, ran from men with flashlights and retrieved a valuable envelope hidden inside a drainpipe.No, I’m not a secret agent. Just a Nine Inch Nails fan.To kick off the band’s upcoming tour, they are hosting an exclusive concert in Los Angeles on July 19. Spots on the guest list go to the craziest fans, and I’m on it.The band posted a file to its website with concert tour locations a couple weeks ago that visitors could download and open in the Google Earth software. Last Friday, a mysterious place marker appeared on the map, labeled “under the rock,” that pointed to a location in Burbank. Beneath that rock was an envelope giving the lucky discoverers entree to the show.

The author of this article and his brother found another point via Google Earth and set out to it, low and behold the coords led to a drain pipe with tickets:  

(photo by Mark Millian)