Google vs. Microsoft
It’s still a raging battle of the giants when it comes to mapping platforms…at least it is in the geeky realms where I spend much of my day.
We’ve all heard of “Web 2.0“, the oft-abused phrase which is attempting to describe the new era of web businesses and websites. One of the cornerstones of the web 2.0 craze is something called a “mashup”. A mashup is simply when you take two unrelated technologies and smash them together to make a third, unique technology. A typical mashup could be made of these two unrelated parts:
- A map
- political affiliations
If you can find a way to map areas by the political affiliations of the people who live there, then you’ve got a “mashup”.
Take a look at Neighboroo if you want to see this example brought to life:
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. If you take a map and then add real estate listings, then you’ve got another cool mashup.
The battle right now in the world of people who make these mashups is which mapping platform is the best: Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth?
It’s a great question as they both have their advantages. Google is pretty easy to use, but Microsoft has outstanding photography, and uses something called “birds eye” view to show you what a house looks like from an angle. I mentioned it a while back in another post about Cyberhomes.
But then Google just came out with something called Street View that allows you to literally stand on various street corners and do a 360. And it’s NOT animation, but actual video. Very cool
So the battle continues between Google and Microsoft. The winners will be all of us who are able to build cool mashups using this technology, and all of you who will use our mashups.
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