November 06, 2006, 1:09 PM PST
Microsoft launches Google Earth killer
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Microsoft is about to upgrade its mapping product, Live Local, to Microsoft Virtual Earth, a competitor to Google Earth. [See news story.] We got a live preview of the product a few days ago and will have a hands-on review shortly. These impressions are based on the demo.

In a word: Wow. Microsoft is doing with its Earth program what I've wanted from Google for a while: creating one integrated mapping and globe-exploring service, not two products with different interfaces. With Virtual Earth, you get all of Microsoft's Live Local features (traffic data, e-mail integration, bookmarks) with the additional capability to zoom around the 3D planet and see your locations from any angle.

Microsoft, like Google, has 3D buildings in its virtual world, but Microsoft's are photo-realistic, not just gray boxes. There is expected to be 15 cities with 3D buildings at launch, with 100 by next summer. In the San Francisco city demo, the buildings looked great.

The service will have an API, so people can use the Virtual Earth globe in their own apps and mash-ups. However, don't expect too many people to create Virtual Earth mash-ups, since the service works only in Internet Explorer.

There are some other snags. The super-zoomed "bird's eye" view continues to have a different interface than the map and globe tools, and this might cause some confusion. And there's no Sketchup-like building-creation utility.

But Virtual Earth is great eye candy, and if you're an Internet Explorer user, the integration between it and Microsoft's online mapping product is very powerful.

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November 02, 2006, 3:57 PM PST
EveryTrail records every step you take
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Several very interesting location-recording Web sites are online right now, such as Platial, 43 Places, Wayfaring, and Flagr. They all record locations and let you tell a story about them. EveryTrail, a new site in early development, adds a wrinkle: It will record your path between waypoints, not just the stops you make.

Why would you want this? To record a favorite hike or bike ride, perhaps. This site lets you share your route with others, for those trips where the point is the journey itself.

EveryTrail requires that you have a way to record your movements, of course. You'll need a recording GPS device--a hiker's gizmo like this Garmin, a GPS watch, an airplane navigation system, or perhaps a GPS-equipped phone. And you'll need to download an app from the EveryTrail site, which can then take your GPS data and transfer it. I don't have a suitable device, so I was not able to test this.

Once you have uploaded your trail, you can add placemarks, notes, and photos. The photos feature, in particular, is very cool: The service correlates the time stamps on your photos with your GPS trail and automatically places photos along your route (if your camera's time is set incorrectly, you only have to tell EveryTrail where one particular photo was taken, and it will calculate the positions for all the rest).

You can see your trails on the site's Google Maps mashup page (EveryTrail also includes a topographical map option, a nice bonus), or on Google Earth. You can also upload the trail to another portable GPS device. There's still no good way to print the trail, though, which is kind of a bummer, because being able to output your path overlaid on a topo map could be extremely useful.

While I was watching the EveryTrail presentation at the New Tech Meetup last night, the fellow sitting next to me said to me, "This looks like MapMyRun." That site does pretty much the same thing as EveryTrail, although it's designed with a laser focus on recording runs and jogs. So if you find yourself in a new city and want to go for a jog, check it out. MapMyRun doesn't have the photo feature of EveryTrail, but it does offer more runner-friendly features, such as a workout calculator. The MapMyRun team has also launched a new site, MapMyRace, a simplified site where runners can scope out race routes (including elevation maps).

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September 13, 2006, 1:54 PM PDT
Google and Intuit match marketing, money management
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

What do you get when leaders of software and Web kingdoms battle to serve small businesses? Unexpected bedfellows can be the result, as with today's Google-Intuit alliance. The search king is partnering with the maker of QuickBooks, the most popular small-business finance software, to allow small companies to manage their funds and product publicity in one place. You'll see the logos for Google and QuickBooks cozy up to serve online marketing for modest-sized businesses of up to a few hundred employees--a base of customers that has been slow to embrace a Web presence.

The announcement pits the Google-Intuit duo against Microsoft, which revealed last week that its Office Accounting 2007 app will integrate with eBay, so you'll be able to manage auctions without opening a Web browser.

Users of QuickBooks 2007 will be able to sign up for Google AdWords with a $50 starter credit and a basic Web page to show off a company logo, à la Google Apps for Your Domain (without the free domain as offered by Microsoft Office Live) . QuickBooks will also guide companies to add listings, locations, and coupons to Google Maps. Another potential source of sales leads will be the ability for merchants to list their wares on Google Base via the beta QuickBooks Product Listing Service. At this point, there's no explicit integration with the Google Checkout payment method. Nor do the Google features apply to the Quicken 2007 personal finance software.

Embedded Google search within QuickBooks will look up customer and vendor information while obeying user permissions settings to hide private data. However, we haven't much love for the intrusive and system-hogging Google Desktop.

If you're a PC-using eBay addict, Microsoft's new software would be the obvious choice. But Mac users who seek online sales leads for their wares will be more likely to consider a jump-start through QuickBooks' Google integration than they would be likely to sign up independently for digital marketing.

Neither Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 nor Intuit QuickBooks 2007 have even hit store shelves yet; Microsoft's software is due before the end of this year, while Intuit's will likely roll out earlier, this fall.

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September 11, 2006, 3:28 PM PDT
Microsoft's new search, maps come to life
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Microsoft's new Windows Live search engine is officially driving the software giant's online services. Today, Windows Live Search begins to replace MSN Search, while the Live.com portal page and Windows Live Local's maps become final products. Google remains on top in the world of Internet search, but its assortment of Web-based products, such as the Writely word processor, lack the integration that Microsoft has built into its Windows Live collection.

And Windows Live Search attempts to add interface innovations that Google Search lacks. Along the right, a list of related searches, similar to those within Ask.com's layout, narrows down a query so that you can home in on, say, Turtle Island instead of Ninja Turtles. Along the top of the screen, Windows Live also links to lookups within Images, News, Local, QnA, and more. By visiting Live.com, you can start searching or sign in to build a personal portal that lets you subscribe to RSS feeds from within search results, and organize content within tabbed pages.

We like Live search's dynamic display of images. You can hover over thumbnails to read the dimensions and URL of origin. Don't think a result is relevant? Click a Feedback link to tell Microsoft so. Click an image, and you can view the Web page that it came from without leaving the window. On top of that, Live's Scratchpad lets you rename and save pictures to create your own collection--similar to the customization offered by Windows Live Local. If only we could scribble all over Web pages and save our notes.

Well, actually, Microsoft is attempting to allow just that with Windows Live Local. Redmond is planning to let you doodle on your maps with lines and shading, so that, say, you can mark up the secret route to a hidden hot springs, or a favorite dog-walking path. In addition to its business listings, Local will embrace white pages lookups so that you can find people, too. And close-up Bird's-Eye views are coming for 25 more cities, including Portland, San Diego, Phoenix, and El Paso. To see what we've tested so far, check out our 10 favorite Windows Live apps.

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May 23, 2006, 9:01 PM PDT
Microsoft improves online maps
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

Last night we got a demo of the new version of Windows Live Local, Microsoft's online mapping system [See News.com story]. It should be launched by the time you read this. This rev brings some important additions to this service, but even though Live Local and competitors Yahoo Maps and Google Maps are far ahead of first-generation mapping systems (such as MapQuest--what is going on over there?), there's still a lot of room left for these products to grow.

There are four big improvements in this new version of Live Local. The first two are necessary feature enhancements: the system now has live traffic data (you can't have a modern route-finding tool without this), and there are new levels of detail in Europe and the United Kingdom--again, a requirement, as a United States-only mapping tool will never take over the world.

The third addition is an improved system for saving and tagging flagged locations. You can now save locations in collections, and you can share those collections. You might want to do this if you created, for example, a collection of restaurants in your favorite city. What you can't do yet is open up your collection to a group of people to edit. Microsoft is talking about how Live Local previews the beginnings of the "geocommunity," but until the community can edit geo data, it's just words. For a look at even richer concepts in geocommunity, see the personal location tracker Plazes and the community group map Frappr, both of which use the Google API for mapping.

The fourth, and most important, addition to Live Local is its integration with Microsoft's communication products, Outlook and Messenger. There's now a plug-in for Outlook that adds a Location tab to calendar events. It links to Live Local and will provide directions to the event from your default location or any location you specify. If it is a group appointment, everyone will get their own directions. The coolest feature is that the add-in will automatically block out your calendar with the appropriate amount of driving time before your meeting. You can't get walking directions yet, though.

If you're a user of the add-in and you send someone a meeting request with location info, they'll get some of the data and a link to the add-in; this could make the add-in viral and help it spread quickly. Unfortunately, getting the directions on the device where you really need them--your smart phone--is not automatic. It will be a one-click operation to paste static directions into the notes of an appointment, but better and more automatic integration with smart phones and PDAs is yet to come.

Live Local is very nicely integrated with the Messenger IM client. You'll be able to chat with someone while you're collaborating in a map view. If you're setting up a rendezvous at a Starbucks, this would be a good way to make sure you're both talking about the same one.

The new version of Live Local, like the current one, has a good user interface, but there's still an awkward shift when you transition from the overhead satellite and map views to the oblique bird's-eye view. Microsoft is fixing this and planning to add even finer-grained, street-level photography. Currently, the best street-level data is on Amazon's A9 Maps, although Microsoft also has a slick demo of its own eye-level data.

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