There's been a lot of excitement about Google fusing Keyhole and Google Maps. I just wish the rest of the world could get a look in …
Of this integration, Jason writes:
The addition was pretty big news … The ability to view satellite images online has been around for years in the form of Microsoft's Terraserver … So why is everyone so excited about it? … it … has a lot to do with someone I wrote about a couple of years ago: it's the user experience, stupid:
Robert Morris from IBM argued last year at Etech 2002 that -- and I'm paraphrasing from memory here -- most significant advances in software are actually advances in user experience, not in technology. …
The satellite feature on Google is no exception. They took something that's been around for years, made it way easier to use (reposition & zoom maps without reloading, pinpoint addresses and routes onto the satellite imagery, toggle between sat and road maps, map size automatically scales to the browser window, etc.), and suddenly this old thing is much more useful and fun to play around with.
Jason's examples: map view, satellite view. On the latter, I put in a simple, 'To here' address (210 3rd Ave, New York) and the result was this:
Don Park's take is well worth reading and John Battelle pointed me to MemoryMap, a 'Flickr/Google Maps mashup'.
