Windows Live Local to offer 45-degree bird's-eye landscapes

by Jordan Running Dec 7th 2005

CNET News.com has some info about Windows Live Local, a new mapping service from Microsoft based on Virtual Earth and poised compete directly with Google Local. Microsoft will be one-upping the satellite views we've grown accustomed to by providing 45-degree bird's-eye photos taken by ~~Microsoft's fleet of supersonic spy planes~~ a company called Pictometry's low-flying planes. They're launching with photo coverage of about one-fourth of the U.S., and the service will "enable users to create customized maps by adding user-created pushpins, as well as annotate maps and share local search information with others," and integrates with MSN Messenger so that multiple users can "simultaneously view and interact with the same map." A beta of Windows Live Local will be unveilled tomorrow, though no word on whether it will be a public or "managed" beta.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Tim Trimble said 7:55PM on 12-08-2005

It seems like too little, too late! Google Earth provides all the mentioned functionality and more. Plus, it's been around long enough to be a mature product - rather than one that MS pushes to the public for beta testing. Though Google always flags their releases as beta. I checked out MS Live and I was very disappointed in what was being offered. If MS really wants to make an impact and be competitive in this area of the internet then they need to provide a fully functional tool instead of offering a couple little pieces for the purpose of announcing that they have a new service. It's the same old marketing ploy - release a service/product with the intent of scaring the competition away. But the service/product is usually substandard to what is already out there. I think they're finding that this ploy no longer works the way it used to. The one exception that I've seen to this is MS's release of the Visual Studio Express (Very Impressive!). Maybe the Live group needs to communicate with the VS group and get some ideas on how it should be done, eh?

Timothy Trimble
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