Color me impressed: Google has released a custom Google Earth application for the iPhone, and it’s stunning.

The Google Earth geographical software has been altered to make maximum use of the iPhone’s screen and functionality. You’re able to tilt the device to adjust your view when browsing mountainous terrain, use the ‘Location’ feature to jump right to where you are in the blink of an eye, and use Google’s local search engine to look for information on cities, places and businesses. Google has also added additional layers to the application, namely Panoramio and Wikipedia, for geo-located photos and informative articles respectively.Source:TechCrunch
Project Playlist is one of the many online music services that have popped up over the last few years. It’s both a search engine and a playlist generator - users search for music that’s located on third party websites and then create playlists which can be embedded elsewhere.

The legality of music search engines is far from clear, as we’ve written about earlier. The company says they pay royalties for songs that are streamed, but that wasn’t enough to stop the RIAA from suing them for copyright infringement in April 2008.

The reason for the lawsuit, which is aggressive even for the RIAA, is that Project Playlist has grown into one of the larger sites on the Internet. Worldwide Comscore stats say the site had 822 million page views from 9.3 million users in September, up from 446 million and 5 million, respectively, a year ago. The number of users is probably somewhere around 20 million.Source:TechCrunch

PluggedIn, a startup that we likened to a Hulu for music videos, has launched a new twice-weekly video program called “PluggedIn 5″ featuring popular video blogger iJustine. The site, whose investors include actor Will Smith, is looking to capitalize on the lack of music content on television channels like MTV and will be presenting a handful of music videos based on a weekly theme alongside originally produced content.

PluggedIn has a large library of music videos secured through deals with the major record labels, many of which are presented in HD or near-HD quality that is much better than what can be seen on YouTube and most other music sites. While PluggedIn launched to the public last April, co-founder Brett O’Brien says that the last six months have primarily been spent on perfecting the site, and that the company is only now beginning to focus on generating traffic and awareness.