Say I'm reading about the Iran hostages on Wikipedia
and follow the story to the Iran-Contra affair and want
to see where Nicaragua is.
Today attached to
'Nicaragua' is a vector image of the globe with
Nicaragua colored and all the rest gray. There are
borderlines, but no further information.
WikiGlobe (not to be confused with the
atlasgold:Wikiglobe image) would show the same
globe,
but when clicked on, would allow you to rotate the
globe, choose different mappings such as country
boarders, major landmarks and terrain, weather and
other information maps such as natural resources,
agriculture, nature etc.
The WikiGlobe will also have links to wp categories -
which
are lists pertaining to a certain subject, and a low res
satelite image.
It can show historical maps as well.
An external link to Google Earth or MS
Virtual Earth (perhaps one of the two would pay for
connecting in, not sure about the politics that went
around that. I do no that Google Search shows
Wikipedia articles as default, so the two ARE
connected
somehow...) and the ability to show multiple
versions
in disputed areas.
In later versions the WikiGlobe mapsite will have the
option to show current lighting, current time
(according
to time zone), current weather, current disaster
areas, and have local maps with
pinpointed information, all gathered by the WikiGlobe
community.