Some of you who love Google Maps might know about its street view feature. Microsoft has actually trumped Google with its new Bing Maps features. Not only does it have its own cameras taking photographs of selected places but has also introduced crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing means the videos or photos you take and post of Flickr can be used against Bing photographs in a seamless way.
First time I used Bing Maps I felt it was a clone of Google Maps but I was impressed with some of their seamless products. The current new products are mainly creating a 3 D environment of whole cities. This is available with Google Earth but for Google Earth you need to install a software which uses a graphics card.
Bing Maps creating a 3D environment is similar to Google Maps and hence you need only a browser rather than a software installed for that 3 D rendering.
There are many features like historical timeline and before and after views which show streets on how they have changed over time. I think these features are a lot more important as an archive than just a mere travel tool.
Here is a video of TED talk which introduced the new features of Bing Maps.
I think Bing Maps and their new features if they get them to work right will be truly difficult to compete against but I am sure Google Maps will have something up its sleeve.
So what do you think about Bing Maps? Will it bury Google Maps and its relevance?