Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote on ReadWriteWeb how Microsoft seem to have created a virtual skateboard-view to scroll through maps. They call it, apparently, "Street Slide".
As Marshall says, it seems to knock the pretty multi-coloured socks off Google's StreetView version that first allowed us to see the streets before we got to them by following the map.
Many is the time I've found the name of a business I know to exist on 'X' street, by checking on StreetView and then searching for their details online.
So Microsoft have shown they don't just to Office software...but can do fun stuff too. Check the video here:
The problem that I have is, once again, there is TOO MUCH CHOICE!
I personally prefer Google Maps and Google StreetView to other systems in the UK, such as MultiMap, or StreetMap.
And whilst I like the ethos behind the Open Source version: OpenStreetMap, where generous, earnest people give of their time to help create a publicly owned (that is, license-free) detailed set of maps, I find that I still rely on Google.
Why?
Because it's all there. It's all connected. I can go from a Google Search to local map view to a company's website more or less seamlessly. Now the other maps can and probably do a lot of that.
My problem?
Too much choice. Why can't they all get to together, have one big happy love-in, and create one map.
One map to rule them all.
One map to do everything, from geo-location services, to hyper-local advertising and community features, to feature-rich 3D views of the places in question.
Competition is not good. Competition just confuses the issue. Most people do not go for the 'best' option available. They go with what they know. Most people use what they have already installed on their mobile. They use what's easiest to find on the Internet - and, curiously, a Google search on 'Online Map' produces not Google Maps as the first link, but MultiMap. Google is only fourth on its own system! This could, arguably, be to show how it is not indulging in anti-trust (or monopolistic) practices. It could also be that the right hand of Larry Page doesn't know what the left-hand of Sergei Brin is up to.
In fact, I realise that this is beginning to become a theme. I've discussed too much choice in software for Office functions, too much choice in online dynamic display systems (i.e. Flash vs Silverlight), and too much choice in E-Book formats.
Whilst I commend inventive minds with entrepreneurial spirits for trying to make the world a better place, I can't see how having a myriad of competing systems helps anyone. They all have their pluses - and their minuses. They all appeal to a core set of users, and then to the rest of the world according to the almost random process of innovation diffusion. One system is adopted by Apple, and becomes almost defacto on mobiles. Another is adopted by Google, and becomes the dominant one on the internet.
What we need, of course, is a benevolent dictatorship to force the geniuses in all these companies to work together, to ensure that there is only one system and it is the best and it incorporates the best features of all the other systems and everyone's happy and everyone knows where they are.
And while we're about it - I put myself forward for the job...or will there be too many dictators all patronising their preferred system....?
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