Virtual Earth or Google Maps

Question

Simple question, the answer may not be...

I'm going to be developing a web app (ASP.NET MVC) for a client. They have asked me for an opinion on whether to use Google Maps or Virtual Earth for providing a mapping solution.

Which would you go for and why? Or are there others you can recommend?

What else do you need to know?

1. Street view (or equivalent) won't be necessary in the near future, but one day it might.
2. The client wants to identify certain mappable features, and beyond that find these features when within a specified distance.

What else should I be considering at a high level? Or my client?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

You should be asking the client for a reasonably comprehensive list of requirements for the mapping solution. You've mentioned one - these "mappable features". Are there any others?

Once you've got the list you can then see which one provides the best fit and go with that.

If Street View is definitely on the horizon then you have to go with Google - or is it something that's just come up in conversation?

Having said that, for a little bit more effort you could write an abstraction layer that sits between your application and the mapping solution so that if the one you didn't choose provides a better fit in the future it would be easier to make the change. Though this does go against the Agile methodology (YAGNI).

Answer 2

One of your major considerations needs to be licensing if this is for a commercial web site. You'll have to contact both Google and Microsoft for exact details and pricing, but there's plenty on the web that indicates it could cost you $10k to implement these solutions in production. They get you hooked on the rapid and easy development though!

My preference is for Google Maps, it just feels a bit slicker but I have developed some pretty good prototypes with the Virtual Earth SDK before.

I don't know if Microsoft are planning an equivalent to the StreetView feature so if that is on the requirements cards in the future then stick with Google.

Either of the technologies will allow you to search for geographic features in various ways - whether via region, street address or specific latitude + longitude. They also allow you to overlay your own images or draw lines, polygons etc.

Google Maps seems to have a wider user base (even though Microsoft were technically doing this stuff before Google got into it!), so you're likely to find more help out on the intarweb when implementing your solution than for Microsoft.

More info on Google Maps for Enterprise is located here: http://www.google.com/enterprise/maps/map_info.html