InsideGoogle

Google Earth Vs. Windows Live Maps 3D: Round Two

This article is cross-posted on both InsideGoogle and InsideMicrosoft.

Last week, after I looked at similar shots of the Super Bowl stadium and downtown Miami in Google Earth and Windows Live Maps 3D, Frank Taylor of the GEarthBlog invited me to check out Google’s 3D buildings in Denver, Colorado. He makes a great case that Google’s buildings there are ways ahead of those in other cities, and thus gives a better idea of what Google Earth is capable of.

Check out his YouTube flythrough:

Of course, if we are going to set this debate to rest anytime soon, we’ll need to see the same view in both products:

View#1:
Google Earth:

Windows Live Maps:

View#2:
Google Earth:

Windows Live Maps:

Google fares a lot better in this comparison than it did last week, with brighter (yet not cartoonish) buildings that look bold and near-perfect. However, Windows Live’s buildings look more realistic, which is both good and bad, because they come off a little too dark. Windows Live has far more buildings than Google does, especially including many smaller building Google is completely ignoring.

What also hurts Google is that there is a damn good reason Denver has all these great buildings: Sketchup, which does the 3D modeling and got bought by Google, was formed in Boulder Colorado. It’s likely that the Sketchup team, or local user groups friendly with the team, did most of these buildings, a model that doesn’t scale to the rest of the world.

I’m declaring Round Two a tie, but Microsoft is still winning and looks confident going deeper into the fight. Microsoft is spending a lot of resources on 3D buildings, and Google doesn’t seem to be dedicating the money or the infrastructure to pull even, let alone win. Microsoft is going to have a virtual 3D earth before Google does at this pace, and if the rest of the media and blogs start paying attention, Google Maps is going to lose its hold as the maps brand de jour.

UPDATE: Rob posted some pictures that show Windows Live in a “better light”, literally. He turned the camera around, showing that Windows Live’s pictures were taken at a different time of the day than Google’s. They were pretty dark from my angle, while his looks considerably better. It doesn’t affect my verdict, but it is prettier.

Windows Live:

Google Earth:

Microsoft should consider the angle of the sun when taking their pictures, since in some cities, the shadows on building make them impossible to photograph at certain times of the day. I imagine that’s why New York hasn’t been given the same treatment as some other cities.

Frank at the GEarthBlog makes the point that we shouldn’t underestimate the Google Earth community. Over time, they will create tons of new buildings, and have been for years adding data layer, placemarks, pointing out cool and odd things in the imagery, and finding ways to make the product better. Google’s user-generated focus is hard to control or direct, but could ultimately yield a better out-of-box experience for the typical user, and that’s the bet Google has made.

Also, Rob found out from Microsoft that there were 6,657 rendered 3D buildings in Denver, compared with about 300 for Google (Google would not give an exact number). No matter how good Google’s buildings look, if they can’t scale up, they aren’t going to have the sheer number of buildings Microsoft will, and they won’t have the smaller buildings that give a city its character.

February 15th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | General | 6 comments