Google Maps Evolving To Become Google Earth? We Think So.

Yesterday, TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley published a post highlighting the news of Google’s feature enhancements and additions to the company’s Maps utility. And he proposed a question: “Is Google Earth on borrowed time?”

Now, I’m sure some of you are thinking that such a query doesn’t hold much ground. That Google Earth is hardly symmetrical to Maps. That it’s a heck of a lot more powerful, and that its uses are quite different. (For example, while Google Earth can provide road maps and driving directions, it’s more a gateway for global exploration, with interesting layers and additions to entertain and inform the user - and do so in a far more immersive way than Maps ever allows for.)

But I’m going to go out on a limb here and agree with Riley. Because he’s right. There’s no denying the gap that separates Google Maps and Google Earth. The divide is significant at present. One construction is akin to a digital roadmap, with the convenience of satellite imagery and traffic warnings and things. The other is something of a kick-ass science project, something you can actually have fun with in a great many various ways. Yet, cannot one argue that, say, in a few years, Google Maps will be Google Earth?

Web technologies, after all, do progress. Applications do become more and more powerful with regular development and enhancement. Isn’t it safe to assume then that what you can only get in a standalone, desktop-based utility today (Google Earth), will eventually evolve into something which resides entirely out in the cloud? I think so.

And, heck, maybe the advancement of Google Maps won’t bring an end to Google Earth. Maybe Google Earth will be as powerful in the future as it currently is relative to today’s Maps. In a few years, we may even see the advent of 'Google Universe', with ways to take a virtual tour of our Solar System and ones adjacent as easily as our own world. By then the application may very well be something regularly used in educational curricula, be they about social history or theoretical sciences.

What’s almost certain is that Google Maps will become what Google Earth is today. Such progression is almost guaranteed. And that’s quite exciting, yes? When the time comes, we’ll most likely take it for granted, and, like we do today, wish it to be more powerful, but such feelings only come with the territory. Technology is an unremitting, forward-looking force and a constant harbinger of better things to come. It’s almost a given to expect subsequent versions of things, whether those things be hardware or software specific.

Last time I checked, the phrase “good enough” was absent the industry’s lexicon. And I'm almost positive that it remains so.

When do you forsee the full evolution of Google Map to a Google Earth-like utility? Before 2010? After? Share your comments on the matter below.