Ray Ozzie, on Microsoft

Live Maps has had similar functionality for months. (minus adding your map to search engine results)

Live Maps has had this but who the heck cares? So the company's worth is suddenly whether it has internet maps. Give me a freaking break.

I pulled up the Route 66 example (several times). After showing the initial page, the browser window locked up tight as a drum. I had to go to the Task Manager in order to end it.

Methinks Google has abit of work to do yet.
Memory leaks maybe?
Scaling Issues?

Maybe they can put an "Oops" like they do on their other "enterprise software"

Kevin, your right. Google is playing catch up.

@3: Works fine for me. Maybe you need to reconsider your OS. (I'm using Linux and Firefox).

I had been mostly ignoring Google base until this. It looks like this capability will make it easy to goood (for example) RealEstate listing online without ANY associated fees. This puts pressure not only on MS and Yahoo, but others like Craiglist (which has spotty coverage in my area).

Since Google rekindled both Microsoft and Yahoo's interest in maps, they have definitely gotten better. But you have to keep asking yourself what, if anything, would they have done had Google not pioneered the territory (pun intended). Yahoo used that lame Mapquest technology for years (and it was the butt of jokes about being routed through Canada for trips across towns in mid-America, etc. TerraServer was a great demonstration of thousands of PCs in a big room and how expensive it could be to use MS software to do such a thing. That was out for years before Google maps, and what (real world) use did MS make of it?

There was a time when MS could cripple competitors applications under Windows to their own advantage. I think those days are over, maybe not for you, but for others who would rather have something that works for a wide variety of applications, not just those from MS.

"But, in the meantime Google ships personalized maps."

Robert, snark is not your strong suit (leave that to Valleywag) ;-)

#0 "But, in the meantime Google ships personalized maps."

MS shipped this 6 months ago.

Funny, I didn't realize Google *didn't* have this until they announced that it *did*.

Anyway, kudos to Microsoft to thinking of this feature first and kudos to Google for realizing it. I don't have that whole "first is better" mentality.

I actually use both Google maps and Local Live, neither one is perfect and each do some things better. There is still no one perfect map tool and I doubt there ever will be.