Maps.Google.com has appeared in beta ... they have maps, addresses and directions in the US and Canada, but they are still very basic. Directions, especially will leave you wanting more, as they are extremely basic and don’t have route highlighting. Other than that, it’s pretty much what you’d expect in a beta.
The one nice thing is that the maps load in pieces, from the middle out, so not only navigation is pretty much as fast as it could possibly be over the internet, but you can resize the map as huge as you want.
Map24 does all of that, but has awesome highlighted routes, and maps for over 48 countries … so Google’s got a ways to go. But if there’s anything we know about Google, it’s that they go … fast.
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Thanks for the tip. I went to Map24.com and it looks like they have “partnered” with Google:
“Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.co.uk, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the corresponding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.
http://www.google.co.uk”
So Google maps will probably have everything Map24 has and more….
Yeah, actually, I think it’s much more likely that Google is going to be stepping out of that partnership. Right now they’re still partnered with Map24 for europe, and MapQuest and Yahoo! Maps for the USA/Canada. But clearly they’re not going to keep sending traffic to those sites once their own mapping system is out of Beta.
As for getting “all the features of Map24 and more” ... Map24 uses a full-fledged java plugin with plugins and everything. Google’s using a light-weight Javascript application … Now, they’ve obviously got some amazing javascript programmers working for them, but some things just aren’t possible in Javascript.