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Microsoft and Google Fighting for the Skies
Robert writes "Today's SF Chronicle has an article about Microsoft and Google's new battle for the skies. Both companies now have similar products that combine maps and satellite photos. Roads and driving directions can be superimposed on imagery on both products." From the article: "Google and Microsoft are engaged in a major battle over Internet users. Each has unveiled a series of features designed to keep users loyal and grab a bigger share of the lucrative search-engine market.
Yahoo, in Sunnyvale, also is a major competitor, though its executives have yet to express any interest in aerial images. Amazon.com offers street- level photographs of businesses through its A9.com search engine. "
I'm absolutely shocked by the way Microsoft took someone else's idea and co-opted it to be their own. just shocked.
Mike
Too bad MSN doesn't work in Canada at all, while Google works great. I do find it kind of funny that "Virtual Earth" is USA-only.. ;)
That said, MSN has hi-res images of my cottage (which is right on the border, and only JUST made it in) while Google only has low-res images of that area.
Speak before you think
sweet, I hope it's somewhere over San Diego.. that place is a hellhole and could use a few fighter jets raining death over them...
....wonder when we'll see the beta of "Google Flight Simulator"....
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
the satellite images they are using are sometimes 10 years old or more! Google's images are very recent and accurate. Nice try Micrsoft but google has you beat on this one.
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when i moo u moo - just like that
Gee, in that case I KNOW who'll make more money off their image search! AND have the most loyal customers ...
I've hated mapquest for years, their maps are small, nasty, and slow to scroll about. I'd rather look at a roadmap and pick a path than use them. In that regard, google maps (or this new MSN map thingy) are extremely nice, since I can figure out where to go, and switch to satellite at turns to pick out landmarks.
The MSN one does have some impressive, albeit colorless, images. Google should try and get their sources to fill in the low-res areas in their maps (which I think have higher quality where they are high-res).
Word on the streets is Microsoft is planning an innovative news filtering application that will bring content from multiple sources into one easy-to-read page. Microsoft also has alleged plans for an innovative desktop search application that will allow users fast and easy access to content on their own machines.
Both features due early in 2009. No word yet on whether these features will be supported for non-microsoft browsers.
I've implemented mapping solutions for large vendor applications and the business benefits for it are awesome when it is implemented properly. The major impediment was the multiple thousand dollar cost. Web solutions allow the data holder to centralize the data, update it more often and fix issues faster. Googles *and* Mircrosoft's work on allowing you to overlay custom data is brilliant when you consider that Google maps can now be a service within an application architecture. Microsoft is not coopting or stealing Google's idea, far from it. This concept and its use in software is probably 20 years old and it has been becomeing more and more mainstream in applications. It is just being brought to the masses now.
how long it will take Microsoft to come up with a way to monopolize the search engine market and cost us another $10 billion.
You got any karma man? I really neeed it. Just a little hit! Come on!
Aerial photographs used by Microsoft and Google can be outdated. On Microsoft's service, an overhead view of Apple Inc.'s headquarters in Cupertino showed only one building instead of the sprawling campus of 11 buildings.
Now why would they want us to think Apple only had 1 building.. hrrrmmmmmmmm?!?!?
Don't anthropomorphize computers: they hate that.
It's not as if the Sound, Long Island's North Shore, or the Connecticut Shoreline areas haven't been photographed countless times by state and Federal agencies. I'm surprised that Microsoft exposed something that looks so slapdash to the public.
Oh, wait...
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
I just looked out my office window. Congress really does look like that.
The comment has already been made. Let's move it along people. Nothing to see here.
The first one that allows me to spy on the hot blonde down the street while she's sunbathing will be my winner
Funny how MS (outdated) maps doesn't show Apples Cupertino headquarters :& cp=37.333411%7C-122.029708&style=h&lvl=17&v=1%3Cbr %20/%3E :1 03&spn=0.005924,0.010131&t=k&hl=en
http://virtualearth.msn.com/default.aspx?ss=apple
whereas google does
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.332307,-122.030
I'll change my sig when I have the time...
Hey, I'm teasing! Calm down!
Use MSN to see where you grew up before the freeway went through.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Funny to see them using CSS extensions that only work in Gecko based browsers like Firefox.
I would love to figure out how to make opacity work for IE. I see them doing it and use code identical to theirs but mine doesn't work. Is there some trick to using the IE-only filter attribute in CSS?
Of course if they'd just support the CSS3 opacity attribute in IE like Firefox does that'd work just fine too.. I'd be happy with decent CSS2, Javascript, and DOM support though.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Microsoft has been doing this for a LONG time. Much longer than Google. What were you saying now???
They have TerraServer for a long time already, but it was always business-oriented. Now they slowly understand that common public can be took away from them by somebody else, who offer the same service for free (actually not for free, but this is another topic to discuss). So they just added Javascript and made it working for free.
I like the maps available with both services and have extended Google Map API into some pretty neat tools. I don't see a ton of use out of the current imagery offered by either service though. In both cases the resolution offered makes it hard to identify most places. Is it just for the 'cool' factor or are there really significant uses for it? I'm assuming there must be and I just don't know what they are. To me the street maps are 100x more useful, which is also the reason I don't understand the use of Google Earth. Sure I think it's very cool but why doesn't it include the street maps, and what is the use of putting the 3D shape of buildings on it? I'm being 100% serious, someone please enlighten me.
MS Virtual Earth zoomed all the way out
Search isn't Google's strong point anymore.
Huh? Please explain what you think Google's strong point is. Please tell me what Google's main focus is since you claim it isn't indexing and searching information.
In most other realms, competition is viewed as a good thing. It seems that with Microsoft (or any other large software company) that they want to completely squash the opposition.
Where did that land them before? In court for an anti-trust lawsuit. (Which seems to have had very little, if any, impact on them as a company. How many billions of dollars busiess do they do in a year?)
Competition should be the motivation to strive for excellence, not to hit your competition over the head with a giant iron hammer that still has yet to be patched with SP2.
And they said zombies weren't real!
Amazon.com offers street- level photographs of businesses through its A9.com search engine
Nifty idea. It'd be great if this could be used to send Spammers photos of their businesses, or maps to their houses when they Spam us.
Nothing more. No threats, no other action, just a simple photo of thier home or business sent right to their e-mail account or FAX machine.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
You ARE aware that Microsoft had both maps AND sat images before Google, right?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Google has a mapping API that lets webmaster's create mapping applications on their own sites using google's massive map server resources. Already a very lively developer community has grown around it. Some sites have even built complete GIS systems on it. Microsoft's virtual earth also has an API. that looks very usable. I think that the competition between these two giants will only bring good things to us all.
Have you looked recently? There seems to be a scale bar in the google maps that I'm looking at.
Or does the one in MSVE do something else that you're expecting in google maps?
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Shows you the streets.