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MSN Virtual Earth to Take on Google
Jim Bruer writes "Microsoft sends news today that founder Bill Gates has announced a MSN Virtual Earth service is to debut in the summer. The service is promised to provide:
*Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods
*Satellite images with street map overlays
* Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants
The service will allow users to choose from a number of different data types plus allow people to contribute their own information."
I can't wait until one of these outfits can finally offer the Virtual Ex-Wife Stalking service.
Via web-services?
I guess not! Further, with google, you can do cool things like http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/ and http://labs.google.com/ridefinder.
I betcha MSN's service will not be that flexible. But, I guarantee that it will have all kinds of bells and whistles. (some may really like 45 deg tilt views).
Right now, google works for me. Let's see how MSFT's presentation is, when it comes to fruit!
Listening to TWiT this morning (Episode 6) there are a lot of arenas where Google and MS are going to be intruding on each others space. Leo made mention of a GoogleFS with a focus on searching. Hey, MS couldn't do it in time, perhaps Google can.
So, will Google become the next monolithic organization that must be destroyed by the Slashdot jackboots?
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I prefer the very unhyped way that Google launches its services, when they are ready! It seems that Microsoft marketing allready has caught up with Google Maps, now it's time for the programmers to do their job.
What is more important, bug-free functionality or the launch date?
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
Score another for Stephenson... His powers of seeing into the future back in the late '80s, early '90s was pretty amazing... I mean this is just another example. How long before we have drive-through places of worship tucked deep in the franchise ghettos?
For the uninitiated, Stephenson wrote about a program called Earth (iirc) in Snow Crash that this is pretty similar to in concept.
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
How very wrong you are. Being first to market is not neccessarily the best thing.
You'll find that the people who make money are just fulfilling demand in an existing market, not creating new markets.
This is, of course, based on the assumption that you measure the success of a company by how much money they make....
-- Matt
> allow people to contribute their own information
So you could overlay a map such as to identify the Chinese Embassy or Sudanese pharmaceutical factories? Sounds like something the US military could get ready for use in Iran!
Microsoft could gain an edge over Google Maps by providing global coverage since the beginning. Otherwise I'm not sure the 45-degree images would bring much added value to the service. Google would probably continue to be #1 in this segment with their yet unmatched UI
Maybe it will give a better view of this thing.
"The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand", or so I have read.
Microsoft are doing exactly what they have been doing with great sucess for the last few decades. They find cool technology, create a cheap knockof, and leverage their OS monopoly to push the original innovator out of buisness. The only difference is that Microsoft hasn't been able to leverage their OS monompoly against Google yet. I'm sure they will think of ways eventually. All they have to do is integrate MSN search, maps, etc. into the core operating system.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
I don't know. The writeup sounds cool. I'm definitely looking forward to version 3!
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
For some reason I get the feeling that there will be a number of pranksters entering things like:
CowboyNeal's house
Latitude: 38.8975
Longitude: -77.03667
"When I die, I want to go quietly, like my grandfather, in his sleep... not screaming, like the passengers in his car."
Mom: Look! Sue is taking her first step.
Billy: Mom! Look at me! I'm balancing a bowling ball on my nose.
Apple: In Tiger you will have enhanced search capabilities called Spotlight
MS: Forget Tiger's Spotlight, Longhorn will do your homework for you.
Google: Now you can search locations using satellite maps. Nifty, eh?
MS: Google is so 2004. MSN Virtual Search allows you to spy on your neighbor's hot wife.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yeah, but at least they came up with that on their own.
I'm reminded of the saying: "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/
This thing has been around for YEARS, even before Google (IIRC)... so instead of Microsoft copying google, isnt it the other way around?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
MSN needs to seamlessly integrate search capabilities within their "Earth" service if they want to compete with Google. 45 degree angles will be, no doubt, very cool and neat to tinker around with. It just won't be truly useful until you can pop in a search term like "Pubs in Baltimore" and come back with locations all over the place.
Moreover, MSN has always had a bloated look and feel. Microsoft will no doubt add the same shiny graphics to it's map service and hinder it's speed. Probably say it's geared towards the internet of tomorrow, when we all have 6 GHz PC's with 4 GB of memory and 10 Mbit internet connections.
OK, that last comment was a bit of a troll, but I just can't seem to think they are going to do anything more impressive than take someone else's ideas and try to make it "MSN shiny." Unless they can compete with the ease of functionality provied by Google's beta service, then they'll fail. Microsoft is a bit late to the party on this one and they have big shoes to fill.
I wonder where MSN got the investment budget for this, off Microsoft or via their own investment/R&D programme.
I'm still very unclear why what Microsoft does in taking Office revenues and subsidising other elements doesn't count as cross-subsidy and thus be in violation of WTO rules.
Anyone else have a clue?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The first thing I'll check is, if the blob is present on MSN maps as well. If it is, I'll buy stocks in the nearest tin foil store.
Underholdning.info
uh yeah...cuz Google was the first company to offer a map program....oh wait....but it was the first company to offer satellite images...wait wait no....I'm pretty sure it was the first company to have free web based email...or then again... um but its DEFINITELY the first company to offer a personalized portal with your news and stocks and sear...oh wait wait no....hmmm.
Yep, first we had Terraserver now we have Google maps.
Here are some links to get you started:
- Mapping Google
- Google Suggest Dissected
- Gmail Agent API
I'll assume you know how to find each of the actual google services.I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Actually Microsoft had Terraserver before Google even existed...
My Journal
and it seems Microsoft are following, if you have to keep measuring yourself up, you have already lost
Just like Google started the first web search eng... oops.
Just like Google started the first online mappi... oops.
Just like Google started the first online newsgroup sear.... oops.
Just like Google started the first online image sea.... oops.
Just liek Google started the first "local" specific content dir... ooops.
Unless you're the innovator, you at somepoint must follow (including everyones beloved Google).
Why would Microsoft do that? It's not their business model. Sure, you may like them to be innovators, but M$'s strength (like it or not) is taking other people's ideas and beating them at their own game - whether through adding more features, integrating it into the OS, or just simply out-marketing them (Win vs. OS/2, anyone?).
Five Dolla Moddy-Moddy?
How cool is it that these companies are competing for the best service to give away for FREE!
It's fascinating to think of all these amazing "free" services we have access to, and how they're actually paid for. All that money comes from a "tax" we pay in the form of slightly higher prices on consumer goods. This tax isn't collected by any government, but by the advertising industry.
In this way, there really is real "value" to Cool Stuff(tm) because the more appealing it is, the more people will see it, and the more valuable it is as advertising real estate.
INsigNIFICANT
If Microsoft thinks Google's a one- hit wonder, why in heaven's name do they keep following them??
Microsoft isn't the only copycat company. Google has come up with what ideas of their own? Did they invent the search engine? No, they just made a better one. Did they create the first News aggerator? No, they just automated it. Is maps.google.com the first mapping service? No, and it's isn't nearly best out there (at least not yet). Free toolbar that blocks popup adds? Not the first. Software to archive photos? Already been done.
Google does the same thing Microsoft does. They take other people ideas and try to make them profitable for themselves. They are both highly successful at this, Google just tends to make a better product while they are at it.
Google sucks because it's US-centric in all it does.
... (not to mention Canada and Greenland ...)
5 6&spn=5.119629,7.910156&t=k&hl=en
Actually, there's some quite nice satellite imagery of Iceland, if that floats your boat
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=64.775391,-19.1601
Terra server doesn't allow "overlays" of roads and routes and doesn't allow you to look at buisnesses in the area. Terraserver is in Black and white and includes topos, and doesn't include scroll and other javascript goodness.
Terraserver was just a way for MS to demonstrate its server/database software. Thats it.
I guess this is just typical Slashdot pro-Google cheerleading.
Disclaimer: I work at MSN.
Last spring there was a demo for Longhorn published to the web. The primary focus was around finding information regarding a real estate property. In the demo the user was able to select the street address of the property and retrieve, photos (air and sat.), demographic information and traffic pattern data and overlay it on a map. In hindsight, this sounds a lot like what Bill is talking about. All of this data was accessible via a web service as well.
I'm thinking that this isn't something that MS just invented "out of the blue" to compete with Google maps, it has likely been under development for a while.
So was Google leading or following when they provided a map service with a few cool enhancements over the competition?
Is Microsoft leading or following when they provide a map service with a few cool enhancements over the competition?
Oh, I see. Because it's Google, they're INNOVATING, but because it's Microsoft, they're RIPOFF COPYCATTERS!
I dunno, I've been pretty unimpressed with the google map images (beyond such obvious problems as U.S. only coverage) -- the quality is so variable it gets annoying, even for a casual use.
That's what you get with satellite imagery when you order humungous off the shelf data sets.
This problem doesn't take any creativity to fix, just cash. With an outlay of cash you can order up custom imagery that meets your technical specifications with a specified level of consistency. Then you need a staff to check it, and then prepare it for use by rubber sheeting it and registering it, or in this case cutting it up into little tiles. This process requires considerable investment in staff, software, equipment and procedures, but it's efficient once it gets into gear.
Last time I looked into this for a client, I figured he could get really good custom sat imagery for his entire county for something like $10,000. There are 3140 counties in the US, of various sizes (this was a large one); what is more if you're ordering data on this scale, you probably can get a pretty good deal on a per image basis. But we can safely say that if you want really excellent data which fits your purpose precisely and covers the entire US in high resolution, you're talking millions by the time you're done.
Using off the shelf data, you have good enough imagery for a lot less money, which makes sense for the speculative launch of a free service. Now that Google has shown how to use AJAX to make the data more interactive, it's only a matter of time before somebody decides to copy them, but one up them on the data quality. Money seeks obvious problems. Fortunately for Google, they have money too now; maybe they're not fated to being the R&D lab for the industry.
Finally I'd have to say the idea of using images shot from a low angle like 45 degrees instead of overhead is good and bad.
Reasons its bad:
* You can't rectify the image and use it for anything that requires geographic precision.
For example, look at the image in the article, particularly the tower in the upper right hand corner. Consider the column of about 30 windows on the left edge of the tower. The geographic positions of all of these windows are exactly the same, but they show up in different positions in the photograph. The same thing happens when one road crosses another on an overpass. If the angle is such that you can see underneath the overpass, then a geographic position on the bridge deck will have a second representation on the photograph: the point on the roadway directly beneath it. The software which plots the vector representation of the roads is not going to know this, unless the data is tweaked for every overpass in the country. Maybe if you had high res elevation data like a LIDAR survey you could mathematically tweak the entire data set.
People tend to believe a photo more than anything else, but the fact is the precision of photos from a geographic standpoint is highly limited. When using imagery with data from other sources such as GPS and surveying, you can't expect it to line up very well. Things are better if you have in image shot from above with a narrow field of view, and if your target area doesn't have much topography.
* You can't see details that are behind hills or structures.
Obviously. If you are interested in an alleyway that's behind a building, or a lot that is obscured by an elevated highway, then tough.
What is good about the 45 degree image is that it does provide a lot of information that you wouldn't get otherwise about the z dimension, for example you can easily see that in the cluster of buildings on the left side of the image, the building with the pyramid cap is the tallest -- indeed that it has a pyramidal cap. Generally, with imagery, you want one taken in the early morning or late afternoon, especially in low latitudes like Miami. A low sun throws a lot of detail into relief, and a high sun tends to wash it out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Hey, Bill - what you're saying sounds really cool and all... but how about showing us a product you've got now, rather than telling us about the groovy stuff you're gonna have someday?
#DeleteChrome
Original innovator? Ever heard of Terraserver? Um, yeah... Microsoft did it first.
(And it didn't look like ass, unlike the new non-MS site currently living at terraserver.com...)
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I think its more interesting how these are released, and how MS is taking a bigger risk.
Google didn't tell anybody. They just added a link to their maps page and said beta. No anouncement, nada. Just a working product, and no expectations.
Microsoft is making an anouncement before they are putting a working product in peoples hands. This may create a lot of expectations, and they will get more critical treatment when bugs are found, if they miss the release date (not MS), etc.
However the MS product turns out. Google will probably end up looking better because they simply released a working service. They didn't hype it up and generate false expectations.
Either way, I think we win as these companies fight one another by making their offerings and products better.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Google innovated by making a search engine that was an order of magnitude better than any that had previously existed.
Google innovated by making a online mapping app that contains an order of magnitude more data than previous efforts, by making tha data hackable, and by making a much, much better user interface.
Google didn't really innovate by buying Dejanews, AFAIK. Google groups is kinf of bleh.
Google innovated by making their image search contain an order of magnitude more images.
I don't know about how Google compares with other local specific content providers.
I'd say Google does it's fair bit of innovations.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
In fact, M$ has ALWAYS followed. Any other way is too expensive.
They let others bust their balls trying to develop something that survives out there in the market place.
If and when it does, they swoop in, 'integrate' it into their system and steal the market.
Their R&D is not for 'creating new products' but 'how to integrate new options' as there come up.
They are quite content to let others do the innovating and they take the cream of the crop and then produce a knock-off which takes at least three tries 'till it works.
That's how you make money. And the worst part is that is the strategy for maintaining 'world domination.'
Notice how long Longhorn has been in the paddocks?
Microsoft is waiting for a credible threat until they release Longhorn. The threat is not here yet.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Unless they invented semi-transparent-building-photo technology, I don't see how they will show any city downtown?
839*929
The problem is, more and more it seems like providing a presentation/UI that doesn't stink out loud is innovation.
To take Google maps as an example - I hadn't found a website that provided streetmaps of the UK with a decent UI. The existing sites would scroll (sorry, page) unreliably, often sending you somewhere that is almost, but not completely, unadjacent to your last view. And let's not forget their favourite - limit the map to a goddamn postage stamp, even though I have a 1280x1024 display, and surround it with distracting garbage.
With Google maps, it's simple and clear, I can maximise the window and the map fills the screen (shock horror!), scroll around as quickly or slowly as I like, and zoom in and out to the level I want, etc.
In some ways, you could say that this is the definition of innovation. Yes, it's obvious, but no-one else seemed to be doing it. (I've seen some better sites since Google Maps launched - that pre-dated Google Maps - but they're still not as simple and easy to use).
I'm reminded of something a friend once said about the iPod - that when the iPod was launched, everyone agreed, yes, this is how mp3 players should be designed and work. Everyone, that is, except all the other companies who made mp3 players.
My point is, some companies/websites will look at a site like Google Maps, and just not get why it is better, and just bitch about how they've been doing maps for ages, so what's so special about Google?
Google isn't the first map provider. Google is the firs map provider to do it right. To take a good idea and implement it in a useable, technichally sound way often requires much more innovation than simply coming up with an idea.
I'm sure a lot of people though 'Hey, wouldn't it be nice with a search engine that actually finds the good stuff on the web' before Google, maybe some even though alkong the lines of Googles pagerank. But taking that idea and turning it into what Google is today - that is innovative. On the other hand, when Microsoft looked at the pagerank algorithm and said 'Hey - we can copy this and make our own site', that was not innovation, because they are copying an implementation, not an idea.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
But how long until it can overlay the map with the red arrows emanating from Redmond, and play the martial marching music, and the rousing speeches about liberating the world for the Fatherland?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Actually, the first generation of this technology was developed by Microsoft. It's not as nice as Google sattelite maps, but it is older. It's called TerraServer and it's still in operation now. If anything, Google copied this idea and refined it. Microsoft TerraServer
You've never ebayed anything?
...do they mean the whole planet or just the US and/or Europe?
What microsoft is doing is exactly the same as google.
What google had been doing was taking an idea in drastically improving on it in most cases.
That's the difference.
I look forward to seeing what microsoft has to offer in this area, but for now I'm enjoying googles products.
Hmmm witty sig or funny sig? Maybe elitest techy sig!
I think Google is trying to beat Microsoft using the classic cold war economic strategy.
We used to do a lot of crazy things to make the Russians think our military was bigger and more mobile than it really was. As a result they had to keep spending enormous amounts of money to try to "keep up". They eventually drove their economy into the ground.
Google, gives its workers 20% time to work on personal projects. Some of these go live. Their search cluster basically gives a project unlimited disk and cpu.
When a project goes live, it comes as a surprise. Microsoft, (and others) finds itself caught off guard, and has to work feverishly to make a "better" product before they even have a competing or functioning one.
Since the projects start off as "personal" projects, and considering the number of employees, even corporate espionage can't be very effective, at getting a heads up, because of the noise ratio.
The last part of the strategy is the quiet, surprise releases. No advance anouncements, no press conference or press release. Just a simple link. The media goes crazy because there is a new link on a google page. They get a reputation of producing instead of promising.
The satelite imagery is a great example. They buy a profitable business, Keyhole, and leverage the access to imagery and for a small amount of development effort, integrate it into the mapping service in a very similar way that the mapping service already works. Even though the satelite stuff in maps might lose money, Keyhole is still earning them money. The imagery becomes a value-added feature.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Here's the comparison table:
... top secret.
Open source calls it: alpha testing
Microsoft calls it: 1.0
Google calls it: shhhh
Apple calls it: unsubstantiated rumors
Open source calls it: beta testing
Microsoft calls it: 2.0
Google calls it: beta testing
Apple calls it: rumors with possibly some substance to them
Open source calls it: release candidate
Microsoft calls it: 3.0
Google calls it: beta testing
Apple calls it: copies are circulated to the usual suspects, who eagerly publish reviews describing it as the "most innovating product yet!"
Open source calls it: 1.0
Microsoft calls it: varies. Previous names have included 3.1, 95, 98, 4.0, 5.0 or X.
Google calls it: beta testing
Apple calls it: released to the market place, Steve Jobs goes on record to say that it is "insanely great".
Open source calls it: 2.0
Microsoft calls it: SP1,2,3...
Google calls it: beta testing
Apple calls it: a recall
And of course, for all of the versions above:
Slashdot puts a writeup on the front page. A million posters call it a Slashvertisement. Somebody quotes CmdrTaco's lame-as-an-iPod comment. Atleast one thread will begin with a Goatse link and will end with a reference to either Adolf Hitler.
Robert X. Cringley will claim with a smile that he knew this was coming.
Paul Graham will write an article on how it could have been done better with Lisp, but oh well, good job anyways.
Linus Torvalds will say nothing.
Bill Gates will appear on pictures smiling evily.
Steve Jobs will appear on pictures stoned.
Maddox will put a writeup on his site involving the item in question and a penis.
I know this is a bit offtopic, but I'm curious -- how come Microsoft has to compete with everyone who's making good progress in particular areas? Do they have a team of people who do nothing but read technical articles and news to see what everyone else is doing so they can target them as a potential competetive prospect?
I'm not a Microsoft basher, nor am I a rampant supporter of them. I have an XP machine at home for gaming, and a Mac for pretty much everything else (OSX for the win!).
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I've been reading all the replies to this, which quite rightly defend Microsoft by noting that they have already had the basic elements of this before.
It made me wonder why it still felt like your comment was valid on an emotional level. Other web sites have, in fact, integrated maps and satellite images - just not nearly as effectively as Google. The effective integration is why we love Google maps.
Well, I realized what the reason was and thought I would share it. Microsoft should do things to catch up with Google; that's capitalism at work. But they go out and brag about them as though they're the first people in the world to do it. If you read Bill Gates' interview in isolation, you'd think he invented these ideas. Google's already implemented them; MS is playing catch-up, but having the nerve to claim that they're innovating by creating something individiual.
I think that creates a perception in the mind of the guy on the street that Microsoft is more innovative than it really is.
It seems especially interesting in comparsion to how Google does product introductions. They slip stuff on their site in the dead of night and rely on people to discover them and spread the word. This works because most people admire Google and are curious.
I don't think that many people are looking at all the cool new things on MSN, so Bill has to talk them up.
D
See these cool sites:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/
and this:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/satellite.html
Lots of fun playing with that that, hope the MS stuff is even better.
Oh well, what the hell...
"Microsoft is waiting for a credible threat until they release Longhorn. The threat is not here yet."
Let me correct a spelling error you made:
Microsoft is waiting for a credible build until they release Longhorn. The build is not here yet.
Incompatible ways, like having a documented SOAP interface to their mapping product for several years? Or maybe hacking crappy client-side javascript is the 'superior compatible' way.
Which of the below options would you choose:
Option 1 (Microsoft):
*buy* a program, install it on your machine, wait for it to start each time you want to use it, keep the CD around in case you want to re-install it, spend hours talking to customer support about *your problem*, or
Option 2 (Google):
get a free program immediately accessible as a web service?
I'd go for the second one. The price I pay: innocuous advertisements. I can live with that!
The mapping software is a good example of the differences in philosophies between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft has to stick with its desktop model, since that's where all their money is. Google has to stick with the web-service model, since that's where their money (and advantage) is. Based on the above discussion, I'd give Google a better chance of success.
Where exactly where has this been shown "all over the place"? If anything, google sighseeing seems to discredit this theory.
Google isn't the first map provider. Google is the firs map provider to do it right. To take a good idea and implement it in a useable, technichally sound way often requires much more innovation than simply coming up with an idea.
Take it from a Mac-head, People never buy that argument.