Digital Geography suggests a neat way to quickly add voice annotation to Google Earth placemarks. Record your message at Vocaroo.com, and when you’re done, click on the “Post on the internet” link. You can then copy and paste the HTML code directly into the placemark Description section: right-click on the placemark, choose Properties, click on the Description if it isn’t showing, then directly paste the Vocaroo code there. When you click on the placemark, the pop-up balloon will display a Flash player for your audio message.
For more advanced annotation, it would probably be better to record and edit your message in MP3 format, upload it to a web location, then try one of the free embeddable Flash MP3 players described on this page. For example, for the Google Reader MP3 player, take the code:
<embed type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” src=”http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=MP3_FILE_URL” width=”400″ height=”27″ allowscriptaccess=”never” quality=”best” bgcolor=”#ffffff” wmode=”window” flashvars=”playerMode=embedded” />
Note: Don’t copy and paste the above code, as that doesn’t work – copy and paste it from the code box on this website. Replace the “MP3_FILE_URL” section with the full link to your uploaded MP3 file, and then copy and paste the code into your placemark’s description section (same as above). Clicking on the placemark will bring up the balloon showing the MP3 player:

Just click on the play button to hear the message.
Other posts in the Google Earth Data Tools series
- KML Editors
- Diagramming In Google Maps And Google Earth With Smoot
- Plotting Data In Google Earth Using GE-Graph
- Drawing Grids, Paths And Polygons In Google Earth Using GE-Path
- Online Google Earth Utilities For Buffering And Area Calculations
- Easy Display Of Thematic Data In Google Maps And Google Earth
- Using GIF/PNG Transparency In Displaying Raster Graphics In Google Earth
- Adding Vector Graphic Objects To Google Earth
- Animated GIFs In Google Earth
- Creating A Network KML Link To A Google Spreadsheet
- LIDAR Tools
- EarthPlot Software Tools For Google Earth
- Geographic Time Animations
- Convert TIGER Polygons To KML Files
- Putting Time Data Into A KML File
- Using The KML Time Embedder To Stamp Time Data Into A Google Earth File
- Using The KML Time Embedder, Concluded
- KML Time Embedder Improved With Hour-Minute-Second Ability
- Grid Creation And Path/Polygon Measurements: Two New Online KML Tools
- Google Earth PhotoOverlay Tool
- KML Random Placemark Generator
- Update For Online Google Earth Utilities
- KML Time Code Utility
- Screen Overlays In Google Earth
- The KML Screen Overlay Maker Utility
- KML Screen Overlay Maker Utility, Concluded
- KML Circle Generator
- Creating Google Earth Screen Overlays With EarthPaint
- Text Editor With KML Validation
- Online Spreadsheet To KML Converter
- Version 2.0 Of Google’s Online KML Spreadsheet Mapper Tool Released
- Creating Google Earth Ground Overlays From Georeferenced Images
- Google Earth Ground Overlays With GIF Transparency
- Creating "Transparent" Topo Map Overlays For Google Earth
- Using Google Earth Ground Overlays To Display Shapefile Data
- Converting 3D Objects Into Google Earth Format
- Thematic Mapping In Google Earth
- An Online KML Validator


i tried to use your instructions but if i paste the code it deosnt work at all
could you help me please!
i’m running an art project using googlemaps and i’d like to add vocarro files
cheers
silvia
Did you go to the website linked in my post, and copy the code text from there? As I note in my post, copying the code directly from my post won’t work.
Neat trick. Works fine in Google Earth. However when I try exporting as kml and importing into Google Maps it leaves out the code. I have the same problem when trying to embed an audio file into a marker in Google Maps directly. Any suggestions or work arounds?
Thx,
Jasper
Try saving it as a KMZ file, and see if that works.
Tried that as well… even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference :-) Within the kmz/kml file is the following code which calls the mp3 player:
<![CDATA[]]>
However this part is taken out of the description when importing into Google Maps. I know I can achieve this using the Google Maps API, however I want to make it part of a tutorial for students and so want to keep the workflow as easy as possible. Google Maps only seems to allow embedding Google Video or YouTube. Now all the media I would like to be able to add is photos (link from Picasa, Flickr is no problem), video (YouTube will do), audio (could turn into movie and use YouTube but looking for something better) and slideshows (like from SlideShare, for which I can really not think of an alternative)…
So more suggestion? ;-)
Sorry, didn’t correctly add code snippet:
< ![CDATA[ ]] >