Amazing images from Google Maps new satellite imaging feature posted over at James Turnball’s Google Sightseeing blog. Jason Kottke has also posted a great rundown of why Google Maps are not new, but much more engaging - it’s the user experience. (By the way Jason, it’s Multimap that does the map overlay.)
It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how great the technology, unless the user experience works, nobody uses it. Someone tell that to the software engineers (Microsoft - You have the money and the expertise… why is your UI so awful?).
Be nice when they get the detailed images in for the closer view. It would also be great if the images were live like John Walker’s Earth and Moon viewer, which is what Mark Pesce’s Webearth uses.