If Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo had it in their mind to start their browseable maps project a year earlier, they still could have created what they did and got it too work on a similar percentage of browers. This wasn't true in 2002 yet, but if Google Maps hadn't been so cool, I think Yahoo and MSN's maps wouldn't have been draggable until much later in the game.
Re:Bird's Eye view is amazing - just needs few twe
on
Windows Live goes Local
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I've also been very impressed with how quickly the Google Earth team has innovated in Google Earth. They took an excellent product and improved it in many ways very quickly and even integrated the Google look in ways that make it clear both Google Earth and Google Picasa are definitely "made" by the same company.
By mosaic, I actually meant seeing all the images with their disconnected edges left as is. It would definitely look like a bunch of photos placed side-by-side and wouldn't be what some people would hope for (since many less savvy users wouldn't intuit what you explained above), but it would still be a cool way to browse through photos of a city.
I didn't think generalizing that the average Slashdotter is a Google FanBoy made one an ass? Its a common topic here that Slashdotters salivate over Google products and stories like no other and that Google gets a lot of credit for even minor innovations. I assumed that Slashdotters would be thick-skinned enough to be accused of giving too much or too little credit in particular areas. Just look at how positive the response was to the anemic Google Talk. Can you imagine Microsoft or Yahoo coming into an already crowded market like that with a product lacking so many established features and not being criticized much more harshly?
I think the whole "I like Google, so other people shouldn't bother" mentality is too common and Microsoft should be criticized for its many flaws, but praised when they deserve it, which I think they do for Bird's Eye View imagery. Sorry if I offended you, but I still don't think my comments are the least bit harsh.
Re:Bird's Eye view is amazing - just needs few twe
on
Windows Live goes Local
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
To be fair, I think Google was already doing significant work on Google Maps before they acquired Keyhole. I'm sure the Keyhole people helped with a lot of the final touches and the integration of satellite imagery, but Google would still have released Google Maps (sans satellite) without the Keyhole acquisition.
But I do agree that Microsoft should get credit when they deserve it (which in this case I think they do)
People say the same thing about Google Earth and Google Maps satellite imagery, but I use those all the times in useful ways. And this imagery is more useful. When I'm going somewhere, its great to be able to see what it looks like first. Itd be perfect for checking out a neighborhood when looking for an apartment/house, for exploring an area to bike/hike (if its in a metro area), and for looking for places to park, and just for fun.
While nothing in the maps space is as big of a step forward in terms of usefulness as the first online maps and directions were (draggable maps certainly comes closest), I think this is still a big step forward for maps and people will find many creative uses for it.
They deserve that credit for their maps and satelite imagery. Even though I think Microsoft was working on something like this before GMaps came out, I'm sure VE would have been much different without GMaps.
But they deserve credit for Bird's Eye View, which no one else is doing and is more useful than satellite imagery when its available. I still think Google Earth is the most fun of the three, but Bird's Eye View is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while.
While there aren't many interface features that beat Google, I don't think the bird's eye view functionality is simple and Pictometry International may be the only company with extensive imagery like this.
I wonder if Microsoft has an exclusive relationship with Pictometry International. Probably wouldn't be in PI's best interest, but Microsoft could definitely buy their best interest.
I hadn't really thought about that, but it is pretty cool that they are releasing all these beautiful imagery without any visible watermarks.
Bird's Eye view is amazing - just needs few tweaks
on
Windows Live goes Local
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· Score: 5, Insightful
While the interface isn't as polished as Google Maps, the Bird's Eye View feature is just tremendous. I haven't found a single block in San Francisco that isn't covered and they all look really good. I can't wait for someone to write a GreaseMonkey plugin to tie this into Google Maps, since their hybrid view is still the best around (except when I want the higher resolution of Virtual Earth [in my area at least]).
And I'm not afraid to say: Wait to go Microsoft! They've created something very very cool that no one else has. While Google Maps and Google Earth were bigger steps in the evolution of maps, this is still quite a large one and I think Microsoft deserves more credit than they got when they first released Virtual Earth and probably more credit than Google FanBoys at Slashdot will grant them now.
That said, there are some annoying interface issues that make it less polished than Google Maps.
Dragging feels unnatural and gets stuck. I feel like I have to drag a little, let go, and then drag some more. Don't see what's wrong with the way
Google and Yahoo do it.
While I can understand why you can't just drag around forever since perspective of the adjancent edges are all different, it would be great if they could make dragging between photos easier so I don't have to scroll up to the upper left to move up or down. Any thoughts on how this could be done more smoothly.
There address parsing isn't as good as Google Maps.
Even if it wouldn't be seamless, it seems they could still offer the option of scrolling around multiple photos in a mosaic format. Maybe they don't want to break the illusion that you are in this space by allowing you to have a mosaic view of all photos available in an area. Maybe someone can create this (though Microsoft will probably shut it down like Google shut down the Google Maps poster maker).
And obviously greater coverage would be much appreciated.
The draggable-maps may have just created interface expectations that can't be met with these photos.
So would you imagine this list was maintained by just one person? If so, it makes enough sense, but otherwise it sounds like you would have to right a web app just to get Google Base to do what a wiki would do.
And I enjoy the fact that most stories have had some time to ruminate with many of Slashdot's readers before posting comments. I don't think comments would be as insightful if every user had just read the article for the first time.
Except here you can trace who set what to whom and with what evidence. Sure, there is the very reasonable possibility of an unfounded attack, but in general blogs and blog comments have many methods that make them much more reputable than most other types of rumor mills.
How would Google Base facilitate this? I haven't use it extensively, but so far I haven't seen any way it would be more conducive to creating this list than a wiki or a forum.
You get what you pay for.
Well in this case you actually don't get what you pay for.
But I do agree that for many items sorting by lowest price is a bad idea. The problem is I've used it on a lot of ~$100 items I've boughten and had a fine experience with the lowest price, even when they aren't a big name.
Guess no matter what the average rating, it's also always good to scan the worst reviews thoroughly.
While a business can't protect them from all forms of slander, in this case a good business would have the protection of consumers who have had good experiences. If priceritephoto weren't a bunch of crooks, it would be reflected in the blog comments. But when a critical blog entry is confirmed by a lot of people, you don't have to trust just the blogger.
And the fact that this blogger has been around for a while is another reason you could have been reasonably confident it wasn't just set up by a competitor.
Which is what makes blog comments so great? They can quickly confirm or deny how common the blogger's experience was. In this case looking at his blog comments and all the terrible ratings on all the comparison sites, it seems like the jury is far from out on this one.
Since it seems from many of the comments on the blog that this sort of thing is common, I wonder how the swindler's behind this store can be shut down instead of just shutting down the store? Even though it may seem satisfying to finally get this store put out of business, its frustrating to know that these crooks will probably leave the business having made a lot of money preying off consumers and may just move onto another business. Has anyone been able to obtain any info on whose behind this and how we can pursue legal action against them, instead of just pursuing their pathetic crooked stores?
My mom had the same experience. She placed a $800 camera order and was called that day to "confirm her address", at which point they proceeded to try and sell her a $150 warranty and other expensive accessories. Once she refused, they suddenly informed her the product was out of stock, but they later said they could get it to her by Friday if she paid for a $150 warranty. She tried to cancel and they said there would be a $40 restocking fee (for restocking the product they didn't have).
They also got caught in their own lies at numerous points. The first representative said it was his first day, and then later he said he had lied before and that he was there for six years (the BBB documents this company as being three years old).
They threatened her with their possession of her credit card and made nonsensical threats to trace down any bad review she or any of her family or friends made, which they could somehow magically do since they "had all the IP addresses of the computer in her household".
The people she talked to at this company said their names were: Harvey Finkel and Moses Franco, though this was probably made up.
Their email tells the user to leave a five star review at shopping sites using the following link:
http://www.priceritephoto.com/priceritephoto/offer .htm
and the text below:
**Please do NOT mention this in the review, we do not offer this to all our customers.
**Please do NOT mention my name or the fact that we asked to write a review the websites will not post it. This will also make you eligible for FREE shipping on any accessory purchases in the future.
While I'm not sure where the got the info, another poster said that people getting the call have the option of opting out of the system over the phone. So the greater risk is to someone entering a bunch of phone numbers at once.
While this does apply to email, our phones are much more private and intrusive. I can't imagine anyone would be using phones if they got as many spam messages as our inboxes do.
While phones have always provided an outlet for jerks, its never been this easy and felt this anonymous. How many people have the equivalent of a war-dialer or would even risk using it maliciously.
I wonder if there is any protection based on time. Even a few 3AM phone calls could be a headache for Google PR.
Given the searches I've tried, I really doubt that this feature is turned on. I tried a lot of searches that result in some of the most appropiate advertisers many of which show up on AdWords. Even if this was only available to a few AdWords customers, I'd think one of our searches would have found them:
flowers
moving vans
pizza
pizza 94043
car rental
vacation hawaii
vacation hawaii orbitz
hotels new york
While I'm not going to even bother with the "Google did something, so why why does anyone bother" stuff, another reason that you should be glad Yahoo is in the maps/local space is that it might finally give Google Local a kick in the pants to become useful.
Google Maps is by far the best maps product out there, but compared to Yahoo Local, their Local product is really anemic. There are some man features on Yahoo Local that I couldn't imagine being without and the fact that I still can't even sort by distance on Google Local seems silly.
Maybe Google should just leave the "local thing alone".
My favorite part was: "his tormentor sent letters about Halpern to Nestlé, the American Stock Exchange, the Food & Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Brookhaven National Laboratory (involved in Circle's anthrax deal)."
Guess we should shut down these insidious user of postal mail and the organizations that support them like the U.S. Government and Postal Service.
Slashdot Mirror
If Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo had it in their mind to start their browseable maps project a year earlier, they still could have created what they did and got it too work on a similar percentage of browers. This wasn't true in 2002 yet, but if Google Maps hadn't been so cool, I think Yahoo and MSN's maps wouldn't have been draggable until much later in the game.
I've also been very impressed with how quickly the Google Earth team has innovated in Google Earth. They took an excellent product and improved it in many ways very quickly and even integrated the Google look in ways that make it clear both Google Earth and Google Picasa are definitely "made" by the same company.
By mosaic, I actually meant seeing all the images with their disconnected edges left as is. It would definitely look like a bunch of photos placed side-by-side and wouldn't be what some people would hope for (since many less savvy users wouldn't intuit what you explained above), but it would still be a cool way to browse through photos of a city.
I didn't think generalizing that the average Slashdotter is a Google FanBoy made one an ass? Its a common topic here that Slashdotters salivate over Google products and stories like no other and that Google gets a lot of credit for even minor innovations. I assumed that Slashdotters would be thick-skinned enough to be accused of giving too much or too little credit in particular areas. Just look at how positive the response was to the anemic Google Talk. Can you imagine Microsoft or Yahoo coming into an already crowded market like that with a product lacking so many established features and not being criticized much more harshly?
I think the whole "I like Google, so other people shouldn't bother" mentality is too common and Microsoft should be criticized for its many flaws, but praised when they deserve it, which I think they do for Bird's Eye View imagery. Sorry if I offended you, but I still don't think my comments are the least bit harsh.
To be fair, I think Google was already doing significant work on Google Maps before they acquired Keyhole. I'm sure the Keyhole people helped with a lot of the final touches and the integration of satellite imagery, but Google would still have released Google Maps (sans satellite) without the Keyhole acquisition.
But I do agree that Microsoft should get credit when they deserve it (which in this case I think they do)
People say the same thing about Google Earth and Google Maps satellite imagery, but I use those all the times in useful ways. And this imagery is more useful. When I'm going somewhere, its great to be able to see what it looks like first. Itd be perfect for checking out a neighborhood when looking for an apartment/house, for exploring an area to bike/hike (if its in a metro area), and for looking for places to park, and just for fun.
While nothing in the maps space is as big of a step forward in terms of usefulness as the first online maps and directions were (draggable maps certainly comes closest), I think this is still a big step forward for maps and people will find many creative uses for it.
They deserve that credit for their maps and satelite imagery. Even though I think Microsoft was working on something like this before GMaps came out, I'm sure VE would have been much different without GMaps.
But they deserve credit for Bird's Eye View, which no one else is doing and is more useful than satellite imagery when its available. I still think Google Earth is the most fun of the three, but Bird's Eye View is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while.
While there aren't many interface features that beat Google, I don't think the bird's eye view functionality is simple and Pictometry International may be the only company with extensive imagery like this.
I wonder if Microsoft has an exclusive relationship with Pictometry International. Probably wouldn't be in PI's best interest, but Microsoft could definitely buy their best interest.
I hadn't really thought about that, but it is pretty cool that they are releasing all these beautiful imagery without any visible watermarks.
And I'm not afraid to say: Wait to go Microsoft! They've created something very very cool that no one else has. While Google Maps and Google Earth were bigger steps in the evolution of maps, this is still quite a large one and I think Microsoft deserves more credit than they got when they first released Virtual Earth and probably more credit than Google FanBoys at Slashdot will grant them now.
That said, there are some annoying interface issues that make it less polished than Google Maps.
The draggable-maps may have just created interface expectations that can't be met with these photos.
The Siteseeing link from their blog is also very cool.
So would you imagine this list was maintained by just one person? If so, it makes enough sense, but otherwise it sounds like you would have to right a web app just to get Google Base to do what a wiki would do.
And I enjoy the fact that most stories have had some time to ruminate with many of Slashdot's readers before posting comments. I don't think comments would be as insightful if every user had just read the article for the first time.
Except here you can trace who set what to whom and with what evidence. Sure, there is the very reasonable possibility of an unfounded attack, but in general blogs and blog comments have many methods that make them much more reputable than most other types of rumor mills.
How would Google Base facilitate this? I haven't use it extensively, but so far I haven't seen any way it would be more conducive to creating this list than a wiki or a forum.
You get what you pay for.
Well in this case you actually don't get what you pay for.
But I do agree that for many items sorting by lowest price is a bad idea. The problem is I've used it on a lot of ~$100 items I've boughten and had a fine experience with the lowest price, even when they aren't a big name.
Guess no matter what the average rating, it's also always good to scan the worst reviews thoroughly.
While a business can't protect them from all forms of slander, in this case a good business would have the protection of consumers who have had good experiences. If priceritephoto weren't a bunch of crooks, it would be reflected in the blog comments. But when a critical blog entry is confirmed by a lot of people, you don't have to trust just the blogger.
And the fact that this blogger has been around for a while is another reason you could have been reasonably confident it wasn't just set up by a competitor.
Which is what makes blog comments so great? They can quickly confirm or deny how common the blogger's experience was. In this case looking at his blog comments and all the terrible ratings on all the comparison sites, it seems like the jury is far from out on this one.
That's funny, epinions.com seems to disagree. Everything single review is very negative:
http://www99.shopping.com/xMR-~MRD-306792
Since it seems from many of the comments on the blog that this sort of thing is common, I wonder how the swindler's behind this store can be shut down instead of just shutting down the store? Even though it may seem satisfying to finally get this store put out of business, its frustrating to know that these crooks will probably leave the business having made a lot of money preying off consumers and may just move onto another business. Has anyone been able to obtain any info on whose behind this and how we can pursue legal action against them, instead of just pursuing their pathetic crooked stores?
My mom had the same experience. She placed a $800 camera order and was called that day to "confirm her address", at which point they proceeded to try and sell her a $150 warranty and other expensive accessories. Once she refused, they suddenly informed her the product was out of stock, but they later said they could get it to her by Friday if she paid for a $150 warranty. She tried to cancel and they said there would be a $40 restocking fee (for restocking the product they didn't have). They also got caught in their own lies at numerous points. The first representative said it was his first day, and then later he said he had lied before and that he was there for six years (the BBB documents this company as being three years old). They threatened her with their possession of her credit card and made nonsensical threats to trace down any bad review she or any of her family or friends made, which they could somehow magically do since they "had all the IP addresses of the computer in her household". The people she talked to at this company said their names were: Harvey Finkel and Moses Franco, though this was probably made up. Their email tells the user to leave a five star review at shopping sites using the following link: http://www.priceritephoto.com/priceritephoto/offer .htm
and the text below:
**Please do NOT mention this in the review, we do not offer this to all our customers.
**Please do NOT mention my name or the fact that we asked to write a review the websites will not post it. This will also make you eligible for FREE shipping on any accessory purchases in the future.
I had this "bug" too. I turned off Greasemonkey and the problem was solved. Guess we have to wait for the next version of Greasemonkey
While I'm not sure where the got the info, another poster said that people getting the call have the option of opting out of the system over the phone. So the greater risk is to someone entering a bunch of phone numbers at once. While this does apply to email, our phones are much more private and intrusive. I can't imagine anyone would be using phones if they got as many spam messages as our inboxes do. While phones have always provided an outlet for jerks, its never been this easy and felt this anonymous. How many people have the equivalent of a war-dialer or would even risk using it maliciously. I wonder if there is any protection based on time. Even a few 3AM phone calls could be a headache for Google PR.
Given the searches I've tried, I really doubt that this feature is turned on. I tried a lot of searches that result in some of the most appropiate advertisers many of which show up on AdWords. Even if this was only available to a few AdWords customers, I'd think one of our searches would have found them: flowers moving vans pizza pizza 94043 car rental vacation hawaii vacation hawaii orbitz hotels new york
While I'm not going to even bother with the "Google did something, so why why does anyone bother" stuff, another reason that you should be glad Yahoo is in the maps/local space is that it might finally give Google Local a kick in the pants to become useful. Google Maps is by far the best maps product out there, but compared to Yahoo Local, their Local product is really anemic. There are some man features on Yahoo Local that I couldn't imagine being without and the fact that I still can't even sort by distance on Google Local seems silly. Maybe Google should just leave the "local thing alone".
My favorite part was:
"his tormentor sent letters about Halpern to Nestlé, the American Stock Exchange, the Food & Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission and the Brookhaven National Laboratory (involved in Circle's anthrax deal)."
Guess we should shut down these insidious user of postal mail and the organizations that support them like the U.S. Government and Postal Service.