Comments on: MSN Virtual Earth weirdness

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:26:44 +0000

I think that much of Google’s advantage in this case comes from their acquisition of the Keyhole company. By taking advantage of the Keyhole database, Google already had a running start here. I suspect that Microsoft just started with their TerraServer database.

The thing that excites me about this is that while the images may be a bit out of date at the moment (check out Chicago’s Millennium Park in Google Maps/Earth), things will only improve. On the other hand, I can’t imagine that satellite/aerial photography is all that cheap, so who knows?

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 11:21:00 +0000

On the other hand, it certainly froze my browser (right now, IE for the Mac [not my computer]).

By: Eszter

Eszter — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:52:24 +0000

If you launch a service in 2005, perhaps you should be using images somewhat more recent than 1991 or 2001 especially when a competing company is able to offer much more recent views.

Boo – Your last comment seems to have some very wrong assumptions about how I think about and try out these services.

By: boo

boo — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:41:59 +0000

Virtual Earth is not like Google Earth, it is like Google maps. Only the names are similiar.

As was discussed on Slashdot, in some places Google has more up to date maps and in other places MS has more up to date maps. Apple’s headquarter’s did not exist in 1991 when the MSN picture was taken.

“Moreover, I find it somewhat curious that Microsoft calls its service Virtual Earth when they cover so little of the globe in detail. When trying to zoom in on various parts of Europe, I could not get anything more than a regional view. That is a far cry from what you can get using Google Earth, or these days, even Google Maps.”

Try using Google maps and zoom in on Germany. What do you see? Nothing.

Question: When does the UK become all of “Europe”? Answer: When it’s time to bash Microsoft.

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 06:29:05 +0000

The database of some images is apparently very old. Nothing more than that.