MSN Virtual Earth Launched

MSN Virtual earth
In what looks like a desperate effort to challenge Google, Microsoft lauched yesterday MSN Virtual Earth, its online mapping service. It offers similar services such as a regular map, aerial photography (somewhat limited outside of the US) and a search engine similar to Google Local that allows the user to search in terms of category (i.e. restaurants, bookstores, etc.).

The tool is pretty good, but I think it comes a couple of months too late, so a big part of the market is already using Google Maps. And knowing Microsoft, I find it unlikely that they will be releasing ways to modify their products, like it’s done at Google Maps APIs. It yielded some nice modifications such as Guild Wars GMaps, the GMap Pedometer, among others.

I find pretty comical that MSN shows a blank lot where the Apple Campus is located. You can see the MSN version and the Google Maps version. In that regard, I find it surprising that they have not censored Google’s Building yet… :P

The data seems to come from Microsoft Streets and Maps as some inaccuracies that were spotted in that version were present in MSN VIrtual Earth. On the right, we can see the best satellite image available over Quebec City. It’s not impressive at all.

Bottom line: Microsoft will have to work a lot harder in order to catch up Google Maps. Their product may get better, but right now, I advise you to take a look at it to see its limitations by yourself.

July 26th, 2005 | Earth Sciences and Geomatics

2 comments

Microsoft has even more work in front of them if you look at what google has done with Google Earth…

However, regarding the data used in creating those virtual maps, I think they’re both using as current data as they can get their hands on. You have to remember they probably don’t have the budget to task specific satellites to specific regions at specific times. They can only take what’s already been done in that department…

Comment by Anonymous — August 18, 2005 @ 10:36 pm

Coming late to the market is not that important. Apple came years late to the portable MP3 player market and today it is dominating it. Coming late to the market is something that Microsoft does often, and it is very good at it. Google Maps having released APIs is a much stronger advantage.

Oh, and the Apple building isn’t censored, it’s just that it didn’t exist at the time the Microsoft photos were being shot. MS is using very outdated data. If you look at New York city you’ll see that the satellite imagery is black and white. Not very impressive.

Comment by Simon Perreault — July 26, 2005 @ 1:38 pm