37 insightful thoughts

  1. @guruparan: I’ve been so impressed with how accurate Google Maps and how many times it’s helped me out that those flaws are easily outbalanced.

    On the other hand Live Maps is frustrating. For example it’s impossible for me to drag and close the sidebar in the Australian version. Links to exact locations is also broken.

  2. There was a carpark listed as a park in my town. It took almost a year from my complaint until they finally fixed it… Along with the low resolution images they use for Australia, Live Maps is falling far behind Google’s system.

  3. Google sent me to Bow once when trying to get to the national history museum in london (when its actually in the opposite side of London). Since then I don’t trust google for my directions.

  4. Long, I sent an email regarding how the Oz maps are crap, and they replied with this:

    On September 25th a DNS redirect occured which pushes Australian users going to maps.live.com to the Australian site. We are in the process of upgrading our site with all the exact same features which the US site currently has.

    You can still access all the normal features which you explain to be missing at the usual US site – http://maps.live.com/?mkt=en-us.

    Regards,

    Dean

    And…

    Further on this, with the latest update to Live Search Maps, the Virtual Earth Interactive Software Development Kit (http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/sdk/) has also been updated. This has opened multi-point routing and collections to international markets, which means we have the ability to include this in Live Search Maps Australia.

    I just want to communicate to you that we take your feedback very seriously and appreciate that you have gotten in touch with us to share your experience. We are currently engaged in planning development for implementation of these features.

    Thanks again,

    Dean.

  5. Agreed… the Australian Live Maps is frustrating, I had the experience of using it today… before eventually just using Google Maps instead.

  6. That is hilarious! That is actually my house in that picture. Just curious, how did you find Jupiter? It’s too small!

  7. If I lived in Australia, I’d be pissed too. Microsoft doesn’t provide the same support online that they do in the states to the worldwide audience.

  8. I have a few examples of where Live Maps imagery is a lot sharper than Google Maps. One example is a house on my street with writing on the roof. With Google Maps, you cannot read it, whereas with Live Maps it is sharp as can be and perfectly clear.

    However, I’ve also noticed a few places where LM messes up, similar to your example, Long. One is a misplaced T stop, that is four or five blocks away from where it should be.

  9. Thanks for the link! Apart from the occasional labeling glitch, I’ve actually find quite a lot to like about Live Search Maps and the broader Virtual Earth platform, both personally and at my day job.

    For one thing, Microsoft’s imagery down here in sunny South Florida (yes, I really do live in the town of Jupiter) is far more recent. Google’s coverage of my little corner of the globe is nearly four years old. And though Google has introduced rooftop geocoding since I wrote this post back in January, we still tend to get more accurate results with Microsoft’s product.

  10. I like Live Maps a lot better in general. The graphics are crisper, and the birds eye is awesome when available.

  11. Oh if this was bad, I tried using the Indian version (before there was a dedicated Indian map service, which I’m still to try) the experience was quite horrible, it named streets with names that weren’t used or understood by most of the people I know and add to that the most common ones were missed out. I hope they have tried to improve upon it.

  12. Mike, I happened upon http://ninemsnlocal.spaces.live.com which is a new ‘blog’ by ninemsn live maps ‘team’. I sent a message to them via the spaces messaging tool, since I figured it would actually reach them, rather than any other feedback form. I also left a comment on one of their blog entries which they duly responded to too.

    It is a huge shame that the services and products that Microsoft provide for the USA lack so much support/integration or even fail to exist in the rest of the world. This is why everyone only knows the tools google provides, because they actually push them out to the rest of the world.

  13. For some parts of e.g. Germany, Microsoft offers an astonoshing quality (very close, high res) and views from 4 directions (about 60-70° I’d guess – while Google Earth offers only 90°). So… it’s not all bad. But overall, Google still is in the lead. Far.

  14. The imagery war between Virtual Earth and Google Maps/Earth is far from over. MSFT just signed DigitalGlobe to provide Sat images to compliment the higher resolution Aerial images:
    http://blogs.msdn.com/virtualearth/archive/2008/10/07/virtual-earth-digitalglobe-worldwide-imagery-improvement.aspx

    And for those in Australia we expect a massive update comming soon. Also checkout what AAMHatch have been upto:
    http://www.aamhatch.com.au/pictometry/index.cfm

    John.

  15. Hi Long..i just pointed out that google maps had flaws….but i am not sure about the bugs that live maps has (esp for australia)..
    Anyway i live in india & frequently work in US, sometimes i use google..and sometimes live maps..i like both though..

  16. I actually like and trust live maps much more. Google maps has on several occasions been wrong with directions.

  17. I have never seen this, it may be photoshopped. What is this location? I want to see for myself.

  18. FAIL HEADLINE.

    I have three words for you (and the rest of the internet in general);
    Here, I’ll put it in a numbered list so you can understand it:
    1) Learn
    2) To
    3) Spell

  19. u are all so fuckin ignorant!!!

    that is not a pond idiots its just the the city is made above the ocean so that actually is the atlantic ocaen’s water if u go to the right ull se the atlantic ocean it self

    fuckin stupid asses

  20. At least Live Maps knows my address exists. Google lost it a few months ago, and can no longer find my street at all. I reported it to them, and they sent me a tracking URL to see when it is fixed. Several months later, that URL still reports the same thing: “we have accepted your problem for fixing.” As far as actually fixing, well…. I have read other reports of Google having lost entire neighborhoods or developments. The Live Maps view of my property is at least 10 years old, however – it does not even show the house, just an empty field. Overall, I prefer Yahoo maps – most accurate and most up-to-date.

    -dan z-

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