What would be the best way to go about this?

There’s a google mashup that does it. No code needed.

@dpworkin Okay, just via Google Maps, I assume? By creating a custom map and embedding it, possibly?

I forget how I did it, but it took me, like 10 minutes.

If you can find someone who’s done something very similar, and released it, you may be able to get away without coding at all…

Here’s some lists to check out… google used to have a gallery of their own but the only links I’ve found to it say it’s been taken down…

http://mashable.com/2009/01/08/google-maps-mashups-tools/
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

Unless someone has done what you’re looking for, it sounds like there may be a bit of programming needed to get it right. Essentially you’d be writing the portion that takes the information from the user (where the placemark is and what the blurb says) packages it up, sends it to google. It would also need to handle a bit of the interaction between the user and the map, but a lot of that is built in.

Here’s the API documentation, it includes examples in different languages…

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/ – the “Other resources” links are especially helpful

Let us know if you find something suitable, I’d love to check it out.

I’m may just be blowing smoke out of my ass on this one as I know nothing about any of this stuff so please forgive, but Facebook has an application “Cities I Have Visited,” or something like that, which may be similar to what you’re looking for. Maybe not, it’s late, I’ve had a couple of Screwdrivers tonight and I can’t find my glasses and that’s when, well, all hell can break loose, when I tend to answer questions I know nothing about and make a lot of typos, well that’s more about the missing glasses than the vodka, but anyway. I hope you still respect me in the morning. :).

@lillycoyote That’s kind of what I’m looking at, with a little more of a blog/blurb function. The large, modifiable map is what I’m going for, though. Also, a better question is if you will still respect yourself in the morning. I’m pretty sure I will.

@funkdaddy Huh, interesting. I would prefer to not go via a custom app if possible, and I’ll probably keep looking around to see if those sites lead me in the right direction, but I’ve been looking around, and apparently it can be done. The site macheist has a member map, embeddable and all, which is pretty much what I’m looking for. I guess I’ll just have to look around at how to make one of those and see if it works for now.

@dverhey Yes, I will, but thanks for asking. I’m pretty used to myself at this point in my life. I cut myself a lot of slack. I don’t know how to program that kind of map into your blog though, wish I did.

http://www.panoramio.com/ upload your photos taken at a particular site on a map, give it however long a caption you want and haved fun. Where the Hell is Matt may have started this way but has gotten more sophisticated. Check out his site and source code
http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/.
As mentioned above—you can do it on google too