WebProNews » Aerial

Google, Ask Make Moves In Europe

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 31 May 2006 14:56:26 +0000

The UK and Germany now have releases of Google Base for their Internet users; meanwhile, Ask.com has expanded its mapping imagery throughout Europe.

Google Base made its debut in Germany and the UK, a move Clay Bavor, Associate Product Manager, Google Base, blogged would be “two more steps toward our goal of creating an easily searchable database of all the world’s structured information.”

Once information has been submitted to Google Base, it becomes available to users on other Google services. Those who do Google web searches, Froogle queries, or even lookups from Google Maps may come across the info provided to Google Base when relevant.

Bavor reiterated why Base will be important for Google’s users in the post:

First, it simplifies the process by which people give Google information they want to share. Rather than having many places to upload information to Google, there’s just one.
Second, by accepting all sorts of structured content–that is, content with attributes like “color” or “square footage” or “location”–Google Base increases the comprehensiveness of Google search by making a wider variety of data available.
Finally, the nature of Google Base’s structured content makes it easier for users to find what they’re looking for by using attributes to refine their search.

Ask has made some nice strides in Europe with its maps. For example, their UK Maps and Directions offer options for travel by car or by foot when looking for directions somewhere.

Farmers supporter Michiel Frishert, Ask.com Site Research and Development, posted recently to his company’s blog about their new aerial maps of locations in Europe.

Not only do we have great maps coverage for the Netherlands, but also for a lot of Western Europe and even parts of Northern and Eastern Europe. We hope to cover the entire world at some point, but this is a great start for our users in Europe.

Frishert also provided quick links to some notable European landmarks like Buckingham Palace and the Eiffel Tower for visitors to see with Ask’s aerial imagery.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Zillow’s aerial from Microsoft, Yahoo! and GeoEye

Glenn Letham — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 20:32:15 +0000

You may have heard that Zillow.com has announced the addition of a significant amount of clarity and visual information to its home and neighborhood images with the addition of bird’s eye views from Microsoft Virtual Earth.

The photos are taken from low-flying airplanes and at a 45-degree angle, allowing viewers to get a much better look at important components of a real estate decision, such as neighboring homes, streets and parks. See also www.zillow.com, www.zillowblog.com

Some more about Yahoo!’s launch of their mapping application… According to the company, you may not know that GeoEye (recall Space Imaging) is providing the hi-res satellite imagery for the program. GeoEye, the world’s largest commercial satellite imagery company, is providing 1-meter resolution satellite imagery that was included in the launch of their beta site on the evening of April 11, 2006. A PR rep from Yahoo! notes that imagery provider, DigitalGlobe, who’s new satellite has been postponed from October 2006 to mid-2007, will only be able to provide Google Earth with black and white imagery in the near future.

Retraction of statements regarding Yahoo!, DigitalGlobe, and GeoEye

Some Clarification… earlier I had a blurb in here referencing imagery used by Yahoo!. In that post I accidentally stated that a PR source from yahoo! had provided some information… I should have stated that the rep was actually from GeoEye (aka. a competitor to DigitalGlobe). As a result, the mention of the statements regarding DigitalGlobe may not be considered reliable at this time given that the 2 companies are in fact competing in the same space… my appologies for any confusion

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Anything Geospatial: Tracking developments affecting GIS, geospatial technologies, location-based services, mapping, google earth and google maps. Published by the creator and editor of GISuser.com & LBSzone.com

Ask Challenges The Online Mapping Crowd

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 19:09:30 +0000

Ask.com launched its revamped Maps product at SES 2006 NY last week to the warm approval of users, and called out its competition on imagery quality.

Unfortunately, Ask didn’t issue the kind of invitation normally bellowed across the ring at WrestleMania. That’s too bad, because it would have been really funny if the next time Matt Cutts visits Ask he encountered Kane in a butler’s outfit. Chokeslam! (Ok, well, maybe not funny for Matt. Sorry, Matt!)

But Ask does believe its Maps product offers a better experience with its collection of images. They said so in their blog:

(T)here seem to be a lot of people comparing our aerial imagery with our competitors. We believe our partners at GlobeXplorer have the most comprehensive and rich set of satellite and aerial imagery in the United States, and as some of you have noticed, in western Europe (check out this awesome view of The Louvre for all of you Da Vinci Code fans).

So far, we have only tapped into their most recent imagery in 12 major markets in the US. Over the next couple of weeks we will update this across the board, so you will be seeing major enhancements all across the country as they build out their cache (another speed improvement).

Ask.com Maps does have an advantage over Google and Microsoft with its European coverage. Ask Maps has street maps of places like Paris and Barcelona, something the other two have yet to match.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.