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April 08, 2005
Memory Maps — Why Yahoo! Bought Flickr Reason #126
03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1) ~ Biz - Internet
I was reading the Flickr Blog today and came across this post about “memory maps.” The idea is that you post a screen shot of an area you are familiar with (from a service like Google Maps), and annotate the screen shot with your memories. Wild!
Here’s part of a picture from the Memory Maps Flickr group showing an example of the annotations.
Just make sure you have a browser that has Flash enabled so you can view the annotations.
Google Maps Satellite View vs. TerraServer
09:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) ~ Biz - Internet
This is probably not news to anyone but me, but I just noticed that Google Maps now has a “satellite” view. This displays an aerial photo of the area you are looking at.
However, if you’re looking to zoom in further than Google allows, it’s worth checking Microsoft’s TerraServer. For areas that they have recently updated (such as Palo Alto, CA), you can zoom in much further than Google. In addition, the TerraServer offers older aerial shots and topo map overlays.
Here’s a screen shot of 500 University in Palo Alto, CA from Google at maximum zoom:
And here’s one of the same area from the TerraServer dated 2/2004 at maximum zoom:
And another from the TerraServer dated 10/91 at maximum zoom:
And finally a topo map view from the TerraServer dated 7/98:
(I zoomed out one level to show a bit more of the region… of course this part of Palo Alto is pan flat, so not much to show regarding topology.)
Hopefully, Microsoft will update their UI a bit, since Google’s UI is clearly superior. I can’t wait until Yahoo! offers this type of service. That is, the more competition the better (for the users anyway!).