Virtual Earth is so "me too" and kinda sucks

Have you seen that Microsoft launched Virtual Earth? Yeah, it's a rip off of Google Maps and Google Earth I guess, but it kind of sucks.

For example, their image data is a bit old, or of poor quality. Not only can you see the World Trade Center, but the image was taken apparently at dusk given that the shadows of NYC buildings block out virtually everything. You may have also heard about how Apple headquarters doesn't exist either.

I don't much care for it just because the UI sucks. I mean, why would permalink open up a little window? You can't drag the zoom slider. The only thing I really like is that it will fill the entire browser window with images.

I guess it just reeks of "me too." I'm generally a Microsoft fan boy, but I guess I just don't entirely get the point. (After installing Google Earth, I felt similarly, I might add.)

14 Comments

  • the worst part is the faux-zoom....let's blow up the image to give you the illusion of a zoon, then once the real image is loaded replace the pixelated crap with what you asked for...



    karl

  • Sounds like there are some variation of currency of the photos they've obtained. I looked at the block on which I live in Silicon Valley and was surprised to see that it's less than a month old! (The cross-walk two houses away just got cross-hatched for the first time ever... California is finally trying to make cross-walks visible from far off, esp. the cross-walks that appear in the middle of blocks that have no traffic signals.)



    The conspiracy theororist in me wants to believe that photos of NYC are JUST NOT AVAILABLE ANYMORE, at least not photos after 9/11..."for security reasons". (Don't be surprised if this is the real reason behind NYC's photos being old. I've checked downtown San Francisco, San Jose, LA, and San Diego and this doesn't seem to be the case. Didn't have time to check DC, such as looking for the recently installed WWII Memorial, but wouldn't be surprised if those photos are 5-10 years old also...for the same reason. Remember, only the commies are allowed to have good photos of our "sensitive areas"!)



    The UI I haven't completely explored yet, so I don't if it meets my sensibility or not...



    That's the only thing to consider when opin'ing about UIs: they're like butt-holes...everything's got one, but rarely are they ever pretty looking! (As long as they're functional though...) Sure you're "putting function before form"?

  • Have you tried the "Locate Me" functionality? That's beyond anything that the other folks have done. Yes, we know about the imagery being old. They are working on getting that upgraded.



    Have you watched the demo with the team over on Channel 9 yet? http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=91714

  • To be fair, I'm sure this was being worked on long before Google Earth was announced, and I think if they can get the couple of UI bugs fixed up (it's Beta after all...) it should rock!



    I kind of agree on the whole "what's the point" kind of thing though. I mean, does it *really* help that there's satellite imagery? Given that it's so much simpler to keep a vectorized representation of streets up-to-date, it seems like satellite imagery is not a lot more than pretty fluff...



    Oh and to Karl, I actually like the "fake zoom then download newer version" much better, in my opinion, than just clearing the whole screen when you zoom. At least this way you get a general idea of where you're zooming into, rather than having to wait for a couple of images to download before realizing you gotta pan around a bit more because you weren't *exactly* on-centre.

  • I just hate how slow it is. Google maps is so much more responsive it's like night and day.

  • Few things...



    1. I don't think you can base criticism on it's purpose. One man's fluff is another man's goldmine.



    2. On that note, where VE does have up to date maps it's pretty amazing. The zoom is 2x better than google and the image quality is noticably better.



    3. It is sort of "me too" and I actually doubt this (at least in this form) was in the works before google maps but who cares? Word, Excel, IE, etc... were all me too products until the original bit the dust.



    4. Locate me is junk. Maybe some day it will be worth something, but being able to pinpoint my location within a 40 mile radius is useless. If I can't even tell what city I'm in I've got much bigger problems.



    5. It is really slow.



    In the end, I think they rushed out of the gate with this too soon and I think the end result has been a flurry of bad PR (no stats available but if I had to guess I'd say the blogosphere is 80% disappointed) that will hurt the product in the future.

  • Tom: I'm watching the blogosphere. It's a lot higher satisfaction rate than 80%. I see a lot of reviews like this one: http://www.ensight.org/archives/2005/07/25/review-msn-virtual-earth/

  • Scoble... I think you're a little too biased anymore. You go on and on every day about how important customer feedback is then turn around and tell everyone how loved Microsoft is, even when that doesn't appear to be the case.

  • I always wonder why the earth is 'USA' and then "some other countries but we don't know which ones". When I zoom into 'The Netherlands', where I live, I can zoom till country level, but no map with even roads on them. Just a tiny country layout with some cities.



    I.o.w.: useless.

  • Frans, yes, Ireland is also not part of "the Earth". Typically American. But then 80% of Americans have never left the states... :) (http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php)

  • ahhh...don't be too hard on Scoble. The man doesn't have an easy job these days. As you pointed out in your post a few days ago, right now the future's so dark Microsoft's gotta buy a flashlight.



    I'm not an Apple/Linux fanatic (as a matter of fact, having used both, I prefer Windows) but Microsoft's at the point where its progressing from stumble to all out free fall and I think this release proves it. They've become so used to competing with lesser foes that, when a company like google comes along, they just seem dumbfounded.



    Certainly not a situation where they are beyond saving, but the trend lines don't appear to be in their favor.



    My only hope is, if things really do turn for the worse in the next few years, that the .net technologies (paticularly C# and ASP.NET) don't go down with them.

  • Looking forward to an Avalon client for this!

  • "Me too"? You're joking, right? Microsoft had the technology for "Virtual Earth" about 8 years ago. It was called TerraServer[1] and it was built as a showcase for the scalability of SQL Server.



    [1] http://www.google.com/search?q=terra+server

  • No, that's a database of images. Terra Server didn't do anything that GE does.

Comments have been disabled for this content.