Via @LBSzone ... Google's @johnhanke moves to new role in user generated location services - See Tweet Here

An interesting news update via way of the Forbes blogs...

It seems John Hanke of Google earth is taking on a new role within the company, holding a position in a new area of Google that will focus on user generated content for location services. this from the blog:

John Hanke, the leader of Google Earth & Google Maps, is moving to a new job inside the company. The switch — to a smaller, more entrepreneurial group focused on user-generated location services — may tell you a lot about where Google is heading.

“We’re creating an entrepreneurial lab — fewer than 20 people,” he said. “It is an incubator for (building products in) mobile, local, and social information.” The Internet, he said, “changes the way people see things — all this information can be stacked behind” an object, be it from tagging, reference information, or social connection. “The next new thing is a substrate (below) the global grid of information…how can this become more useful to people in a mobile context?”