The basic version of Google Earth is free — and plenty impressive. This makes life harder for those inhabiting the GIS Earth ogling competitive space. GIS professional and blogger James Fee weighs in.

In the amateur atlas aficionado space, I can’t help but feel that Software MacKiev’s gorgeously designed 3D Weather Globe & Atlas suffers from atrocious product launch timing. At any other time I’d have forked over the $40, but now I’d rather wait for the Mac version of Google Earth, even though Google Earth Mac likely won’t have the lovely interface MacKiev’s product does. That’s because in the end, levels of detail, the open standards and concomitant hackability (for example, the ability to add your own weather map overlays should you so choose, or anything else for that matter) are far more important. That said, I would love it were Google to buy MacKiev’s product for the GUI.