Mashable clued me into another technology announcement that could potentially benefit the real estate industry — this one mentioned the fact that you can now embed maps from Ask.com into websites and blogs (similar to embeddable Google Maps). One thing to note is something Sean at Mashable picked up on –

A feature unique to these maps is the ability to search inside a given area. Get to the city you want, use the drawing tools provided to mark out the area you want, and then search for things like “food” or “coffee” and the search will only return results in the area you designated. You can then zoom in and out as needed, and receive driving & walking directions.

You can start playing around with the mapping by following this link — and once you have something you’d like to embed, just click the “embed” link in the upper right of the page. One way I see Ask’s maps being useful to real estate is to embed custom maps from Ask relating to each listing to allow potential buyers to search the immediate surrounding area for restaurants, coffee shops, or local events. A home buyer wants as much information about the area as possible, and the fact that maps are so visual and quickly digestible make maps a potential great addition to your single property or community-orientated website. Here’s a map of restaurants in Seattle, WA:

Here’s two more sample maps embedded in an HTML page.

I can certainly imagine the value added to a single property website with a customized map included displaying the local restaurants, especially if the listing is in a very urban environment. I’m sure all the creative people reading this can think of some further interesting ways embeddable maps can be used on real estate websites and blogs.

There’s a more detailed post at ResourceShelf for those interested.