Google maps w/ satellite imagery

[Mike Davis]

Ed-

Thanks for the response, I agree that the approach used by Google,
TerraServer, etc... is rather limiting to those of us who really like
to tinker with our on-line maps.  I know I have a great time exploring
Mapserver/IMS sites, checking out all the layers, and browsing around
to my hearts content.

That being said, I think there is definately a need to improve the
user experience in web-mapping applications.  Users can be notoriously
unforgiving when forced to wait, with anything less than instantaneous
response considered "slow".  For those instances when flexibility is
not the primary concern, the ability to pre-generate tiles and cache
them on the client might be a good solution.

Despite the limited nature of Google's mapping site, it definately
raises the bar for the rest of the web mapping community.

-Mike