Today, they’ve announced that the project has come to fruition. 44,000 kilometers worth of driving has yielded some unbelievable before and after photos that are now available for everyone to see using Street View.

In the bottom left corner of each image you’ll also see a month and year that tells you when a particular photograph was taken. When looking at images of the magnificent cities side-by-side with images of the ruins left in their place, this additional context demonstrates how truly life-changing this tragedy has been for those who live there and witnessed the destruction of their homes, neighborhoods and even entire districts.

This timestamp feature has been the most requested Street View feature for the last few years, and it is now available on Street View imagery worldwide. Professionals such as historians, architects, city planners and tourism boards—as well as regular users including travelers and home-buyers—can now get a sense of how fresh the online photos are for a locations that interests them

You can access the new Street View photos by simply going to Google Maps and entering Street view in the specific areas, but it’s better if you visit the Build The Memory site, which is devoted to the before and after shots.

It might be a little tough to find perfect before and after shots, but if you search up Japan’s Northeast coast, it won’t take you too long. Once you zoom in on a particular area, you can hit the “before” or “after” buttons at the top and see a photo of the same location, either pre or post tsunami.

Doing so will give you amazing contrasts like these from Onagawa, Oshika Distrcit, Miyagi Prefecture:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

As you can see, the devastation is immense. At least this sort of thing can provide context for people who were too young to remember the disasters or perhaps hadn’t even been born yet. Another interesting visualization of the Japan disasters was released by Twitter back in June. It shows the volume of tweets being sent during the earthquake and the chaotic period afterward.

According to Symantec, malware creators have devised malicious software and websites designed to make money from concerned members of the public, by targeting specific web searches so that their sites get listed in results. Such queries include things like "western Samoa," "Earthquake," "Tsunami," etc.

When users go to these sites, they are presented with fake antivirus scan attempts, which offer to clean users’ computers. Of course they do just the opposite.

The subject is really just reflective of a larger phenomenon in which cybercriminals are preying on innocent searchers by targeting topics that are highly searched for. There’s nothing more heavily searched for than current events, and there are plenty of tools out there that give away this information. Things like Google’s Hot Trends, Yahoo’s popular searches, and  Twitter’s trending topics are generally good indicators of queries that are being heavily searched for.

"These types of attack are becoming increasingly prevalent online," says Hon Lau, Security Response Manager at Symantec. "We recently identified similar attacks following both the Serena Williams outburst and the Twitter based attacks reported last week. The people behind these scams are constantly evolving and adapting their attacks to suit current news events. Unfortunately there is no event, no matter how heartbreaking, which a hacker will not try to profit from."

Symantec warns users to be "vigilant and cautious" of any search results which appear not to link to trusted sources.

Dubbed by some as “the Chinese Tsunami,” fears abound about the possible damage to the textile industry as a result of the expiration.

The MFA imposed restrictions on Chinese exports, creating a leg-up for smaller industries in developing nations.

But last January, the dam broke, allowing Chinese manufacturers to fully compete in world trade. The result for smaller manufacturers, especially in Africa and Asia, has been almost a complete shut down on production.

Case in point, Lesotho in sub-Saharan Africa. Lesotho was given a “foot-in-the-door” by the MFA, but since the eradication of quotas, has had to all but shut down its factories.

One might expect an impact on smaller producers, but developed nations are feeling the pinch as well. Yesterday, the top European Union trade official, Peter Mandelson, said that he would open a formal two-month investigation of the flood of Chinese textiles into European markets.

The concern comes from clothing makers, especially in France and Italy, as they struggle with a 534% surge of imports in nine categories of clothing and textiles – T-shirts, sweaters, blouses, stockings and socks, men’s trousers, women’s coats, bras, and flax yarn.

This influx has driven the EU to consider reinstating quotas or adding tariffs to textile imports.

Pressure is also being put on the Bush Administration in the U.S., which has already introduced sanctions, to impose stricter protective measures.

China has expressed vehement opposition to the consideration of restrictions.

Yi Xiazhun, assistant minister of commerce in China said, “adopting the administrative measures of the era of classification quotas is unfair to China. It’s turning back to the past.”

Yi added that China would “resolutely oppose” any measures taken to reimpose quotas.

Mr Mandelson , who seeks first a voluntary agreement from China, said, “Chinese exports should, of course, be allowed to grow at a normal speed following the removal of quotas. But we must also extend protection to European industry if it is faced with a ruinous surge of unprecedented proportions.”

A WTO study released in September predicted that China and India will dominate about 80% of the global textile market in the post-MFA era.

They recently launched a new earthquake/tsunami notification system, making vital US Geological Survey data more easily and immediately accessible to the average person (as well as to other tech developers who can take PubSub’s XML feed to build notifications into other consumer applications).

“We realized our Internet-scale matching and notification system was ideal for making this critical data more easily and quickly available to the average person. So we’ve developed a system to translate the USGS technical feed into XML – the standard language of the Web,” said Bob Wyman, chief technology officer of PubSub Concepts, Inc.

Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

The blogosphere was quick to respond in force in a variety of ways. In fact, it was an encouraging footnote to a horrific natural disaster. BlogPulse breaks down how the world helped out online. An interesting footnote is how blogs are helping hold relief organizations accountable to how tsunami relief funds are being spent.

Here is the BlogPulse intro …

“The world watched in horror and awe on Dec. 26, 2004 as an earthquake and tsunami devastated wide areas of Southern Asia.

BlogPulse’s analysis of tsunami-related coverage in the blogsphere follows.”

Kevin Dugan is the author of the popular Strategic Public Relations blog. Kevin is Director of Marketing Communications for FRCH Design Worldwide.

Visit Kevin’s blog: Strategic Public Relations.

Picasa’s one such example.

The service itself makes editing and sharing pictures easy, and they made Froogle, Blogger and Gmail tie ins. But how is Google going to tie Picasa in with their key service?

Picassa’s competitor Flickr (a free service that makes its dough from a pro account that allows a gig of upload a month) made an interesting partnership recently with blog search engine Technorati.

When searchers use (about Technorati tags) they can search posts and flickr photos that have the corresponding terms in their tags. This gives a neat twist to those whose blogs are more marketing oriented, though I wonder how long it will take for spammers to jump on this particular function.

What makes this Flickr tie in work for Technorati is that they’re both – for the most part – personal media sources. This can have compelling results. Try a A . (not for the squeamish)

Google images gives me about four newsy pics and then a slew of pics from 1992. So I’m looking for a Picasa tie in soon, and for Google to get with the program and deliver some blog search with a Google News style front end. That plus Picasa pics would give new meaning to news.

tx to jd for telling me bout flikr and technorati

Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

(NGOs) in the wake of the Asian tsunami disaster:

“This site attempts to get an overview of how various organisations around the world have reacted to help broadcasters affected by the December 26th Earthquake and Tsunami. There is the immediate need to replace stations put off the air. But also longer term thinking about the role of broadcasters in times of natural disaster.

The authors believe by sharing this information on a portal, that broadcasters will be stimulated to coordinate their efforts.”

Fellow Netherlands-based business blogger Jonathan Marks is the architect behind the portal, with tech setup by Ton Zijlstra.

It’s part of a much larger global public (non-profit) effort to ensure better communications between NGOs, governments and, now, broadcasters. It’s already generating a lot of traffic, Jonathan says.

The larger global effort Jonathan mentions is the Indian Ocean Disaster Relief Portal, a wiki maintained by the creators of The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog.

This is a great initiative at a time when news and information outside the affected tsunami disaster area is beginning to disappear from the front pages.

It’s also another great example of a key role new communication tools like wikis (and blogs) can play in helping maintain channels of communication – as well as help others maintain their channels of communication – in times of tragedy.

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

Two scams using the Indonesian/Indian crisis as a theme emerged this weekend. One of the scams involves an email with “Tsunami Donation! Please help!” in the subject line. The mailing contained an attachment called Tsunami.exe. When opened, the infected file launches VBSun-A, a newly discovered worm.

According to Sophos.com, “running the attached file will not only forward the virus to other Internet users but can also initiate a denial-of-service attack against a German hacking website.”

This is the second such worm that uses the Tsunami to fool unsuspecting people.

The other scam, a phishing attempt, uses a fake but convincing Red Cross web site to trick users into entering credit card information. This includes pin numbers. The site is located at www.american-redcross.org. If you would like to donate to the official Red Cross, please visit them here: www.redcross.org.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said, “Duping innocent users into believing that they may be helping the tsunami disaster aid efforts shows hackers stooping to a new low. This gruesome insensitivity is a despicable ploy to get curious computer users to run malicious code on their computers. Everyone should be wary of unsolicited email attachments, and visit the established charity websites instead if they wish to assist those suffering as a result of the disaster.”

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.

One woman used hers. She should have been an Information Director in the periphery of the situation, but instead she became the one every Swede listened to for a few days. This is now an important ingredient in a political crisis in Sweden.

This is not about blogs, as such. But blogs are to a great extent about forming a voice, and I think it’s interesting to discuss what we can accomplish if we use it. To summarize the background the Swedish political system was taken by complete surprise when the tsunami hit the beaches where 20,000 Swedes were on vacation. They just weren’t prepared for something like that.

It took close to 40 hours before the Prime minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs even spoke with each other. And that in a country where power is very centralised to the PM.

This has led to a heated political debate, and the governments actions (or non-actions) will be examined by both the Parliament’s Committee on the Constitution and a citizens commission.

The two days when the government didn’t understand the magnitude of the disaster someone else stepped forward: Lottie Knutsson, Information Director of Fritidsresor, a tour operator with thousands of customers in Thailand. She participated in close to every news broadcast. She told us what they knew. She told us what they feared. She said they were sorry they couldn’t do more. She demanded the government’s help.

She reached out.

Now, a couple of weeks later Fritidsresor of course avoids becoming involved in the political aftermath. The company concludes they had basic disaster plans and used them. That’s important. Every crisis communicator knows that.

I don’t think Knutsson is a heroine. She did her job, what the communicators’ primer tells us. But the difference between her and the government is so huge. The government’s popularity ratings are decreasing – and at the same time people are writing to the newspapers saying Knutsson should be Foreign Minister.

There are two factors here. First of all what everyone actually did or didn’t. But in a situation where very little could be done, one thing differentiated the major Swedish actors. What they said and how they said it. The power of the human voice.

Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info blog which is a guide to business and corporate blogging.

Visit Fredrik Wacka’s blog: CorporateBlogging.Info.

One blogger who was involved in this had possession of 12 videos that he was making available on his site. He didn’t have rights to any of them.”

So says Terry Heaton in a post in his Pomo blog writing about some efforts he’s been involved with in trying to set up bandwidth-sharing for videos about the Asian tsunami disaster. He adds:

“… Personally, I think we need to look at rewriting copyright laws, because once one of these things is posted on the Web, it becomes a free-for-all in terms of swiping and using. The same thing applies to photographs and graphics …”

I couldn’t agree more. I wrote on this topic last month, saying that current copyright laws are wholly inadequate in this age of copy-and-paste freedom to grab and use anything you come across on a blog or other website, without a care in the world. And whether you know it’s right or not (and any reasonable blogger will know what’s right and what’s not).

The balanced approach to copyright and recognizing the intellectual property rights of others as advocated by Creative Commons is how ‘normal’ copyright law should develop, in my view.

In the meantime, employ some common sense:

1. Use someone else’s work only if:

a. You have permission;
b. The work is in the public domain; or
c. What you do with the work amounts to “fair use.”

2. If you do not know whether a work is subject to copyright, investigate before you use it.
3. If a work is subject to a copyright, don’t use, quote or lift from it without getting permission first, unless you are confident you meet a fair use exception. For a blogger or site owner, that means ask before posting someone else’s articles or photos.
4. If you don’t know whether it’s copyrighted or do not know for certain that it is in the public domain, ditto.
5. If you have any doubts, consult a copyright or intellectual property attorney before using someone else’s work (advice costs less than defending an infringement claim does).

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.