On Tue, May 08, 2007 at 04:50:55PM -0400, Daniel Packer wrote:
advanced google maps,
Just picking on one bit! Can we reduce that to "advanced maps"? I don't mind if, at the end of the day, consensus is that google is the way forward, but it seems to me (as a non-programmer) that google got a headstart by being the first "slippy" map with a decent API. For Oxford, at least, there are better free (as in beer and maybe as in speech) maps available from a user point of view
* The aerial photography in maps.live.com is way better, cos Google still don't have Oxford in a decent resolution (everything to the east, but it stops at the ring-road.
* The maps from maps.live.com are better than google, showing more paths and other non-car routes, but even better (where it exists) is the data from openstreetmap - and that's getting better all the time. In most of Oxford we've now got every cyclepath and footpath as well as streets covered - and that's important when pubs for example are only accessible by towpath or other footroute. Compare for example the "Map" and "Mapnik" links on the map at http://oxford.openguides.org/wiki/?Perch and suddenly you see another way of getting there (the Mapnik link is images made from fairly old openstreetmap data of Oxford).
s