[sagar]

"Yahoo Maps existed well before Google Maps, and Google Earth is a retread of a similar NASA program."

Yahoo Maps, while very useful in showing directions, was low in coolness factor. Not to mention, page needed to reload if you wanted to go beyond the screen. Google Maps incorporated Ajax and satellite images to change web maps forever. Now, Yahoo Maps is struggling to keep up with Google Maps.

Regarding Nasa, it isn't in the Internet business and has a space program of its own(!), so they obviously would have pioneered the satellite imaging. But Google put together almost real time maps with satellite imaging and Ajax technologies to make web maps easy and fun.

[killjoy]

Yahoo Maps, while very useful in showing directions, was low in coolness factor. Not to mention, page needed to reload if you wanted to go beyond the screen. Google Maps incorporated Ajax and satellite images to change web maps forever. Now, Yahoo Maps is struggling to keep up with Google Maps.

Yahoo used to have satellite images also. That was pre-9/11. I am not sure if they took them off because of post-9/11 government pressure or because of licensing issues. Immediately after 9/11 they censored some areas such as Washington DC so I suspect the government has something to do with it.