They are setting up a system where you’ll be able to see things down to a street level view.
Also, things like garbagescout.com are cool.
Thanks! You are right about 2 things:
- watching the youtube link helped me “Get the idea” and learn something interesting.
- the narrator is really,really really really boring
Then of course there’s http://googlesightseeing.com
Isn’t that playing Superman?
I have almost every paved race track in the US pinned and about half the dirt tracks. I also use it to plan out estate and garage sales when I am looking for stuff to sell on eBay.
My daughter is doing a college year in Germany next year, and it was very handy in looking at the buildings where she is going to have to go to register and stuff. They don’t have a street view, but there are lots of photos of buildings linked to the pictures.
Also handy for seeing which houses in our neighborhood are owned by the bank. The addresses we get from somewhere else, but it is easier to identify the house with a picture, even from above than just an address.
My folks are riding the trans-Siberian railroad this summer. We took a couple of hours and covered their route on Google Earth. Between being better able to visuallize where all those funny sounding towns were located, and viewing some of the photos that are linked to those sites, they are feeling better prepared for a trip that they really want to take but were a little nervous about.
I am embarrassed to admit that I saw this thread and just went and looked at Google Earth for the first time. Well, that’s one way to kill two hours! 
That’s EXACTLY what my wife uses it for, too.
I use it for maps for my SCA group, when we’re at away sites. And to plan road trips that feature interesting geology exposures.
Ctrl-Alt-A brings up a nice Easter-egg flight simulator program.
I used it on a recent trip to Hong Kong.
It helped me make the decision on which hotel to stay at. I’d find a hotel on the internet and use a combination of Centamap and Google to position it in relation to the area I wanted to stay at and walking distance from an MTR station.
I plotted all the locations of sites I wanted to see so that I could easily transfer them to a street map book.
Using a pin, I put in the description of what was at that location and the link to the web that had more information. I eventually linked my smugmug picture site within the pins. so that people can download my google maps .kmz file, import it, see where I’ve been, and then link to the pictures taken at that location. I orientated the pin views so that the pictures I took on the ground were facing the same direction. I even plotted out hiking trails in anticipation of transferring them to a gps unit. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a useable gps unit with a hong kong database. (man I have waaay to much time on my hands! But, I was there for 5 weeks and even though I only used half the data it was more than worth it.)
When I had a 3-month job assignment in Louisville, I’d use it to see which restaurants were within walking distance of my hotel room. Then look up the reviews of the restaurants.