Has anyone had experience with creating a new a CMS Block?
 
Is there any documentation on how CMS Modules, Blocks and Pages fit together?
 
I want to develop a CMS Block that can be added to a page to display a google map based on data from customers and merchants

Hi
 
If it's any help, we have a stockists map that was created in Google maps.
 
After creating the map with Google fusion tables, we copied the "iFrame" link from Google (the beginning should look something like <iframe width="800" height="600" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://www.google.com/fusiontables/embedviz?viz=MAP&q=select+col1+from+1JoeNgmbpx-......) and pasted this into a table in a custom page. - you could do similar in custom block, then just add the block to whichever page you like in Viart.

Thanks JD
I took a look and its a great solution for static source data.
My problem is that I want to use data from ads -- like the ad poster's address -- to show the advertisers location on the map as part of Ad's search based on address/postcode.
 
I did work out a few things:
1. I created a Custom Block that has a google map shown, but it only has a few fixed markers and uses a lot of of JS
-- I need a way to make this dynamic without ending up creating a huge list the resultant html.
 
2. Found the correct CSS Class to hide the title bar of the block
-- add "hidden-title" (without quotes) to the Blocks: Appearance [Block CSS Class:] settings