In the olden days, ESRI was GIS. Then Keyhole came along and demonstrated the entertainment value of GIS in the consumer space. NASA's World Wind, a less publicised but equally cool application had been in the works since, I'm guessing, late 2003. So when Google bought Keyhole and promoted it the application essentially owned the mindshare for Geographic Exploration Systems (a term which James Fee deplores).
Slowly, the old hands are working their way back. ESRI has been working on a web based platform which integrates GIS data/tech into applications delivered in a similar way to GYM's mapping apps. And now NASA has launched a new version of Word Wind which closes the gap in terms of eye candy with Google's product. I'm cribbing from Jame's post, here - you be the judge:
On closer inspection, WW still has a way to go in terms of serving high resolution satallite imagery (ironic, given that the ultimate source for the images in most consumer mapping products is NASA). In addition, there are some issues with the interface that need to be fixed (holding down both mouse buttons and scrolling to zoom...?)
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