Microsoft's Virtual Earth and the remixable web
Web 2.0 hacking with things like Virtual Earth is seductive but subject to potential lock-in. What we need are open data formats that can match the speed of hacking development that will make these services more plug and play. I wonder if microformats are up to that challenge.
Sections: Business Emerging Practice
Topics: microformats microsoft search where20 where2005
I'm at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 today. Microsoft has presented a neat application, Virtual Earth. It's not out yet, but you can see propaganda at the site I linked.
What's neat about this service is that they make explicit allowance for social applications. You will be able to do things like put up reviews of local businesses and integrate them with maps. I had been talking with Ryan King at technorati about this just two days ago in discussing a location microformat. I wanted to find a set of reviews for local gyms near my sister's house in San Francisco. Sure, she and her friends had ideas, but they were not tuned in to the kinds of things I look for (I am a workout addict).
Continue reading "Microsoft's Virtual Earth and the remixable web"
Bud posted this on June 30, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
More on Web 2.0, price discrimination, and commoditization
My continuing discussions with search industry participants at Where 2.0 about the business case for offering your data for free.
Sections: Business Emerging Practice
Topics: google IP microsoft where20 where2005 yahoo
As announced at O'Reilly's Where 2.0, Google released their mapping API as did Yahoo. Microsoft is also mentioning that their Virtual Earth will be for free. I'll leave it to others to discuss the key elements of these APIs. From my perspective, the kicker is the licensing terms. For instance, Google is offering their API for free as long as people can use your mapping web application for free.
I had a chance to follow up a bit with Mark Law from Microsoft's Virtual Earth on their licensing terms. In particular, what does it mean to be non-commercial? According to him, non-commercial means you are not making money off the map data, so it sounds like Google. They plan to introduce a tiered pricing structure for access to the data for commercial use, based on volume and number of services used.
Continue reading "More on Web 2.0, price discrimination, and commoditization"
Bud posted this on June 29, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
