Is Google Chasing Bing Features?

I didn’t bother to blog this Google Maps announcement since I figured the Google Maps/Earth bloggers would. I did notice it was like a Bing feature I did blog.

What I didn’t do was try Google’s implementation. But Michael Hickins at http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2009/07/did_google_push.html”>InformationWeek did and he declares it lame and a suggests its a quick response to playing “feature match” with Bing.

To achieve this effect, Google simply mashed up user-generated photos with its map, resulting in a mish-mash of semi-effective information. There’s definitely a place for user generated content, but crowd-sourcing information should be a conscious decision, not something that’s foisted upon users in the guise of reliable information. People who use Google maps aren’t looking for views from apartments they’ll never see or points of interest to people completely unlike themselves.