Local Live.com and Google Earth - missing a trick

Microsoft previewed its keeping-up-with-the-Googles product, Local Live.com, which is promising, incomplete and doesn't seem to work on Mac browsers (no surprise there).

They've found the missing feature of Google Earth and Google Maps, namely a street-level view.

However, both companies are missing a trick. These products need to be Open Sourced.

What they are building is a virtual world based on the real world. If you look at successful virtual worlds, like Second Life, you see that there is an enthusiastic community of people that will develop a 3D environment if you give them the tools to do so.

Think of all the people that look for their current location on Google Earth. Now what if they saw there was no street level view, but if they walked outside, took a few snapshots, and uploaded it in a specific format, they could update the service.

Considering that Google has already added a number of community contribution features, I'm hoping they will wake up to this idea too, and send Microsoft's buggy beta into obscurity.

Microsoft is like an annoying kid in high school, who has no sense of style himself, but poorly tries to copy the fashion of all the 'cool kids'. Go back to the Dungeons & Dragons club, Microsoft, we don't want you hanging out with us.