I just sent my online journalism students a link to Google's new personalized map tool, which I hope a few of them employ in their semester final projects.

The tool allows users to create personal maps, with multiple points of interest, custom boundaries and embedded photos and links, which they can then share with other readers, or link to from their websites.

It used to be that you needed to use the Google Maps API, or third-party tools, to create such maps. Now, it's a simple point-and-click interface. In about one hour last night, I whipped up a map of U.S. theme parks.

One weakness: I couldn't find a way to embed the map into a page, making the API the continued preferred solution for developers. But if you are a blogger without coding skills, or a newspaper.com editor on a deadline, this is a nifty new tool to create a custom online map, with little effort.

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