MSN Virtual Earth Revealed

jeremyw writes "A day before its official launch, MSN Virtual Earth has gone live. MSN appears to have been inspired by Google Maps in this combination of local search and mapping. Virtual Earth introduces a number of interface enhancements to the now-familiar draggable aerial web map, such as the ability to zoom in using your mouse scroll wheel, and a Location Finder to determine your location to determine your real-world location "using Wi-Fi technology." Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the site may not perform at full capacity until Monday."

Comments

Not a good first impression

[defkkon]

Typed in my home town including specifying that it is in Ontario, Canada.

MSN Virtually Useless Earth took me to some little town in the US. Apparently, it completely ignored my criteria.

I love a lot of Microsoft products, but if they're going to compete with the likes of Google Earth and Google Maps, they're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Besides, the interface isn't nearly as clean and fast. Just my two cents.

Re:Not a good first impression

[ect5150]

Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble claims the site may not perform at full capacity until Monday.

Would that have anything to do with it?

Re:Not a good first impression

[Snaller]

No. Capacity is not related to ability. Its still going to look like crap and abuse stylesheets on monday.

Just me?

[Apreche]

Is it just me or does it seem like all MS is doing these days is just copy catting google? Google made a better search, MS tries to make a better search. Google makes a map, MS makes a map.

I think it's rather obvious that the creative type who comes up with the ideas usually prevails over those trying to play catch up. When MS makes something new and Google has to copy it, that's when you know the tables have turned.

Re:Just me?

[Mr. Maestro]

You know, Ford makes cars with 4 wheels, and voila, GM copies them and makes a car with 4 wheels also.
I'm not saying Google is not innovating, but what is Microsoft supposed to do? If they don't make a mapping software, then they are attacked, if they do, then they are attacked.
Besides, I remember having a CD called something like Encarta Streets or something that was MICROSOFT mapping software long before google was anything other than a mispelling of goggle.

Re:Just me?

[kurtmckee]

Would you prefer that google had no competition

I would prefer that Google had legitimate competition, not the type that Microsoft provides. Microsoft never steps into a market and works hard to do better than anyone else -- they step into the market with fistfuls of cash from their existing monopoly and use their brandname and monopoly cash to "compete" until they've destroyed everything in sight, at which point they shutdown all operations and move on to another existing market with clear non-Microsoft innovation.

Why do you think that Internet Explorer has had the same outstanding deficiencies since 1998?

Competition can be a powerful drive to improvement

I don't believe Google is above having competition, but keep in mind that they've been producing the best search products for years -- they're light-years ahead of everyone else in just about everything they've touched. Google does their work without any real competition to hound them into being better.

Microsoft isn't welcome competition, ever. Maybe if they produced results, but they've been an ineffective-products/effective-marketing company for too long to believe they'll start actually producing anything new in search technologies. And I say "new" because I find it hard to believe they can even do that, let alone "better".

Some places look better in google maps

[Mocenigo]

For example, this infamous building

http://virtualearth.msn.com/default.aspx?cp=32.676 439%7C-117.158347&style=h&lvl=17&v=1

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.676147,-117.1575 27&spn=0.005491,0.006289&t=k&hl=en

Roberto

That's what Microsoft's always done

[arevos]

Microsoft doesn't create markets, it attempts to take over young markets through agressive (and sometimes illegal) marketing. It aims to achieve a monopoly, which it can then use to lock its customers in, creating a long-lasting cash-cow.

This is the technique used for Microsoft Windows, Word and Internet Explorer. It isn't always successful, but it is successful often enough to make a lot of money and annoy a lot of people.

Misfeatures that bug me

[team99parody]

The part that leaves me with a bad impression is that a lot of core browsr funcationality is broken which makes this really tough to use.

• If you do a "local search" it brings up a panel with links - however if you shift-click or right-click on those links there's now way to open the new page in a new window.
• If I hit the back button I don't go back to my previous local search results. Heck, somehow they messed with my browser button so the back button never leaves their site. I remember back when porn companies did this, but I don't expect to see reputable organizationos do this.
• I can't right-click on the image to bring it up in it's own window -- a normal web-browser feature that is very nice for printing maps without wasting paper&ink on useless headers and footers.

Basically, this page combines all the limitations of a web brosers with all the inconsistancies-and-difficulty-of-use of a PC application.

The one thing that made the Internet easy-enough-to-use to make everyone comfortable with it is that all pages worked the same way (back button works) and all links worked the same way (same right-click-menu). Why does Microsoft feel a need to change this?

Re:ms and innovation

[Momoru]

Except that Microsoft had mapping, local search and satellite data first...years ago. The only thing they "copied" was the dragability.

Teraserver

[TheAncientHacker]

Let's see. Microsoft did Teraserver back in 1998. I guess, by your own definition, the tables have turned...

Re:ms and innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

and nobody (including ms) really cared about that ms mapping service. Now that everybody knows about and uses google maps, ms comes out with an updated version.

It's the same as with the new IE version that is rumored to come out soon. MS did not care about it for the last few years (still no png support...), and even announced that html would be obsolete after the release of longhorn. Now firefox threatens their position on the (soon to be dead...) browser market and a few weeks later ms announce a new IE version.
It's ok because they save a lot of money that way, but please don't call them innovative.

Idea source vs idea destination...

[NetSettler]

Is it just me or does it seem like all MS is doing these days is just copy catting google?

Aren't they both just following up (slowly) on Neal Stephenson's idea from Snow Crash ?

With all due respect to those "hard-earned" software patents the big vendors are sporting at every turn, I'm not sure that at this point in time that anything you see actually implemented was necessarily thought up by the organization that implemented it.

For example, science fiction writers often write about things like communicators, phasers, voice interfaces to computers, teleportation, robots, and so on long before big companies implement them. And often those scifi writers get their ideas from other, less well-known but still publicly available technical journals, computer programs, fanciful stories, and so on.

Society is rich these days with technological ideas, which is why software patents are such a bad idea. But while ideas are cheap, implementations are not. So I don't see that any of us are hurt by a second implementation of this complex idea per se.

What we ought to be more worried about than where the ideas came from is where they're going. "Copycatting" is self-correcting because if the market thinks it was a waste of time, the cost will not be recovered.

But meanwhile it's there and accessible. And especially as program APIs are added to these things, I wonder where people will point fingers the first time one of these is used as a targeting system for terrorist missiles.

He's Dead Jim

[Thanatopsis]

Stop it already, he' dead Jim. I think the servers got slashdotted. Never have seen Google go under in a slashdotting.

Re:Wheel Zooming done differently

[Trigulus]

huh? msn virtual earth sucks ass. the programmers should be wearing ribbons of shame!

Re:Locate me...

[key134]

I personally think that the Locate me feature is kinda cool. It may be useless, but much of the internet is. Plus, if it is only going by your IP, it can really only tell you where your ISP is located, not your actual location unless you own your IP.

Anyway, I don't think that the Windows key is unique, is it?