MSN Virtual Earth vs. Google Maps [TDavid]
Quick score card of Google Maps vs. MSN Vitural Earth. Gives the edge to Google Maps for acurate overlay of roads.
- Google Maps highlights the street names and highways clearer as shown above using their new “hybrid” view (+1 GM)
- MSN Virtual Earth calls the spot to return to the map a permalink and Google Maps says “link to this page.” I think Google will win out with the non-geek/blogger audience with this term (+1 GM)
- In Google Maps, I put “Safeco field, Seattle, WA” and was treated to a red pin of where Safeco Field was located. I put Safeco Field in in “What” in the MSN Virtual Earth and it returned “no results found” even though you can clearly see the words “Safeco Field” on the map above. I then tried the same thing as GM using the ‘where’ field and same thing: “no results found.” So if I’m a baseball fan in Seattle and want to find Safeco Field, how do I do it using Virtual Earth? I did find if I put the keyword “baseball” in the ‘what’ field then that immediately put a red ‘1′ next to Safeco Field. Think I’ll call this one a draw because GM’s map to keyword function seems a little more intuitive, but VE’s makes it clearer to see and allows narrowing searches within the current map which could be really handy if you know the general vicinity of something, but don’t know where on the map it actually is located. I also tried the keyword “baseball, seattle wa” in Google Maps and it returned a bunch of results in the greater Seattle area, Safeco Field among them. (DRAW)
- Next I tried getting directions from Puyallup, WA where our office is located to Seattle, WA in both VE and GM. In VE when I chose “Drive To” it took me to maps.msn.com. It prefilled the location of Safeco Field which was on my last search as the end point. All I needed to add was Puyallup, WA and it returned detailed driving directions with a green highlight showing the path. Unfortunately, it wasn’t tied to the Virtual Earth map, unlike GM which simply gave me two fields: “Start address” and “End address” when I clicked on the “Directions” link. Everything stayed on the same page and it used AJAX to pull in the location without any page reload. Again, GM edges VE in more simpler UI (GM +1).
- My last task was to find bowling alleys in Puyallup, WA and the surrounding areas. I typed “bowling” in the ‘what’ and “puyallup, WA” in the ‘where’ in VE and immediately it rapidly returned the results in Puyallup and the surrounding area. The only problem is it didn’t return Daffodil Bowl which is in downtown Puyallup. I tried the same search in GM using the “Local Search” link and Daffodil Entertainment Center (see, no “bowling” in the title) was the first result returned (GM +1)
- Overall speed of both programs is a DRAW, except when it comes to mapping as mentioned above, which I already gave a point to Google in that department. VE suffers from not having better integration with their very clear and superior satellite view.
- Overall intuitiveness of GM vs. VE, I would give to Google Maps (GM +1). I found it easier to use and more intuitive than MSN Virtual Earth. If it only had better graphics and clarity, it would be the clear champion between the two.
- Overall graphics and clarity VE wins because the satellite view is bigger and cleaner (VE +1).
March 4th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
I’ve also added a link to the Satellite Maps of the Top 100 Biggest Cities