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Should come as no surprise that I am quite the fan of online mapping applications. I've lavished enough praise on Google Earth to make that a foregone conclusion. My geomapping love is not monogamous, though. Google Earth is probably the best all around package, but I keep up with all the "competition". The main competition is Virtual Earth from Microsoft. Others are sprouting, though. The newest entrant on the field is EveryScape.

EveryScape on the Streets

Whereas Virtual Earth could loosely be called a Google Earth clone, EveryScape distinguishes itself in a number of ways. Currently in beta, EveryScape can most clearly be compared to Google Maps "Street View". Keep the "beta" part in mind, as, perhaps a bit unfairly, I will be comparing a beta to a production model. No doubt EveryScape will see improvements before it is considered finished.

EveryScape provides the user a street level experience in much the same fashion as Google's Street View. It's somewhat ironic that Everyscape's navigational map for selecting where in New York to look is, in fact, Google Maps. This isn't true of other cities, like Aspen, so they may be using it for convenience's sake while aseparate navigational system is developed.

The real meat of the system is the Flash based panorama viewer that provides the experience of standing on the street, or on top of a car, in the selected city. The visual experience provided by EveryScape is not just a flat 360 degree panorama "ring", but more like a sphere. Unlike in Google Street View, where your view is restricted to eye level, with EveryScape you can look up and see the sky and look down and see the street (with the car that mounted the cameras taking the photos). This gives Everyscape a more lifelike feel right off the bat. The virtually unlimited field of view gives a much better impression "being there" than Street View accomplishes.

More useful? Probably not. If you're looking for a store or landmark, seeing the way at eye level, as Google provides, will probably suffice. EveryScape's nearly unlimited field of view does help, and looks a lot more impressive, in areas with tall buildings. Since both Google Street View and EveryScape provide New York City, it seemed fair to compare the two based on the merits of their presentation of the same "source".

Traveling through the proverbial steel canyons of New York with EveryScape is the more enjoyable experience, as the ability to "look up" to see the towering buildings is impressive. Navigation is similar in both, withclickable arrows on screen to display where the next segment road goes. Street View ads the visual cues of a 3D trail following the street's direction. It does make picking up the way to the movement arrows simpler, and makes selecting streets at intersections easier. Google wins additional navigational points by displaying the "approximate" street address of the image the user is currently viewing. This makes it easier for someone looking up an address to determine if they are looking in the right place.

In terms of image quality, EveryScape's New York set is the more visually impressive. The quality of images across all of EveryScape's starter cities is uniformly high. In New York, Google Street View doesn't appear to have any high res imagery. At least, after trying a few locations, I didn't happen across any. There is a lot of New York to cover, so it's entirely possible they do. With Street View's higher-res imagery, users can zoom into the street scene and look "deeper" into the image. Currently EveryScape doesn't have similar functionality. What you see is what you get, there's no ability to zoom deeper.

There's A Scape In My Living Room

Purely in terms of street level views, the more mature Google product is still the more useful at the moment. Again, in a purely visual sense, EveryScape's experience is more pleasing, but you'll still be using Google to find stuff. EveryScape isn't a one-trick pony, though. It has an ace up it's digital sleeve for which Google doesn't have a response. Both EveryScape and Google Street View let you look at the front door of a business, only EveryScape lets you walk inside.

EveryScape's "scapes" aren't limited to street views. They can be applied inside as well, or in pedestrian areas, like a park or mall, allowing the user to "walk around" instead of just driving the streets. There are examples of this functionality on the site itself, such as a nightclub in Miami or a pedestrian walk in Aspen. The ability to get off the street is where EveryScape will have a chance to really shine. If you've ever tried house shopping online, then you're probably familiar with the idea of "virtual tours". EveryScape looks to be able to bring this kind of functionality to the world at large.

This kind of functionality appears to be how EveryScape plans to pay the bills. Having business and their websites linked off "walk-ins" from EveryScape is part of their revenue model. Not sure how well that will work out for them, as it seems it will hinge on the site becoming a popular webdestination first. Similarly , I'm not sure how well people will take to "searching" EveryScape for a location to buy products, "walking into" the store, then just clicking a link to go to an outside website. It would be a lot easier to just search, say... Google, and find that same website with many fewer steps.

On the other hand, EveryScape has just "gotten me into" a Miami nightclub, something that probably won't ever happen in real life. So the entertainment value alone could be worth it to a lot of people.