July 24, 2005

Nothing like a little competition to make things interesting. MSN has brought out Virtual Earth to compete with Google Maps. It's nice to see completion between Google and MSN. Either company without the other would not be as inclined to push the envelope so to speak. I caught a glimpse of MSN's Virtual Earth before they shut it down this morning since it wasn't supposed to go live today. I used NodedNoded for a comparison of the two services. I was impressed with the MSN satellite images when compared to Goolge's. The MSN images had a higher resolution: I could even see the deck behind my house. Since neither of my cars was in the driveway I guess I wasn't home that day. I think that the MSN images are slightly newer.

I did notice that Google has added a new button next to the map and satellite buttons called "Hybrid". The hybrid button draws the streets names over the satellite image, this could be very handy. As long as Google and MSN (and Yahoo for that matter) keep competing we will continue to get more and more nifty features.

Note: I've noticed that both maps put my house up the street from it's actual location. This is consistant with the navigation system in Mrs Noded's van. The government in their infinite wisdom doesn't want the enemy to know the exact location of my house. I feel so much safer in the knowledge that if the bad guys drop an atom bomb on me that it will miss by a good 200 feet.

Google Map [link]
MSN Virtual Earth [link] Now up and running.