David Emery OnlineSomething cool from Microsoft
24 May 2005
Hmm, never thought I’d say that!
Check out this video on Channel 9 about Virtual Earth (as seen on Scoble ). I’m really liking the interactivity of the user interface, and the zoom effect they have is really nice. Also, if the “Eagle Eye” view uses imagery as good as they claim it will, that will be pretty neat too, although I have serious reservations about the dragging-a-looking-glass interface model they had in the design mockup – hopefully once they user test it’ll be gone.
It’s interesting, as it shows that the web is now moving into a whole new phase now that we can do interfaces as well in the browser as we can on the desktop (and also in almost any browser – none of this plugin/proprietary rubbish).
From what I see here, it thoroughly trumps google in a couple of areas – I like the full-window map (why does google only put it in a small window? That’s what I want to see, and I’m only on a 12” screen…), and the multiple layering of different search results looked cool, as long as the interface works well with it.
Hopefully this will both 1) Come to the UK, so I can actually use it and 2) Make google add some of the above to their product (there’s nothing like a good bit of competition…).
Some closing thoughts:
- People other then google can do cool stuff.
- A Microsoft that’s playing catchup is a much more interesting Microsoft.
- The web is about to get even more interesting.