Interesting marketing stunt: First, we had logos written on top of physical structures which aren’t really there (here’s an example), now Disney is using Google Earth to promote its blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (PotC2). How? One of the official sites has a .KMZ overlay for download which adds the pirates islands, links to trailers, movie and soundtrack information and a (lame) easter egg. Nothing fancy you wouldn’t find here and there, don’t expect much interactivity, just a static file with some XML and a few images which get downloaded to your hard drive. Voilá. A few extra islands here and there and some plain hypertext links presented in a fashionable way.

Suddenly, it feels like someone is opening a huuuge Pandora’s box. There are movies (and TV series) which feel a whole lot more real than PotC2 which:
a) take place in somewhere which is probably already mapped by Google.
b) probably have a zillion viewers and fans which are experienced Google Earth users and would love to know a little more about the show (yes, I would love to see Lost trying something like this).
c) could use an extra dose of marketing share and buzz factor.The truth is building solutions on top of Google Earth is easier than spelling Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious. Real time interaction and dynamic behaviour can be achieved by server side components located anywhere (not necessarily Google).
I think we may be seeing something along these lines in the near future…