No, this is not about a ride down memory lane to join Karl Malden and Michael Douglas but rather about Microsoft’s new feature over at Windows Live Local, called Street-Side. Yesterday the team pulled the curtain off their technology preview.
So what’s Street-Side all about? For that I would like to quote what Microsoft has to say about it:
Historically, maps give you a perspective of geographical information about a place. In Windows Live™ Local, powered by Virtual Earth™, you’ve seen road, aerial, and hybrid maps. Then, we introduced bird’s eye views to give you a perspective from above. Now, we want you to be there, right in front of the pizza shop you are searching for, in the street-side views offered by Windows Live Local. Even though you haven’t left the comfort of your computer chair, you’ll feel like you’re actually there.
At first glance virtually driving or walking around San Francisco or Seattle doesn’t sound very appealing to me because I’m more for the real life experience. But it might be a nice tool for getting in depth driving directions. That way you have the possibility to memorize landmarks, which usually are not part of “traditional” driving directions tools. At second glance it stresses Microsoft’s growing eagerness to grab a large slice of the web 2.0 cake. In my opinion this new feature together will Microsoft’s other new web based services also shows that there are quite a few creative heads in Redmond who do their best to help Bill Gates take a look outside the desktop box. But I don’t quite agree with Michael Arrington’s when he titles his post abou this new service “Killer New Live.com Service: Street-Side“. It’s just taking another step along the maps/satellite path. Of course now the perspective has changed to street level but I think it’s not as innovative as for example the introduction of Google maps was. But that’s just my two cents.
