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With Jeremy Zawodny’s mention that Yahoo!’s new AJAXeriffic Maps Interface is in beta, I decided to give it a try. It’s quite nice and shows a lot of improvement over Google’s Maps with only a few places where Google clearly wins.

I haven’t had a lot of time to play with it yet but, from first glance, these are the differences I see.

First, the things that Google does better:

• Google was first and has a large base of applications using it’s API.
• Google’s service seems to be more stable, and, having been around longer, it should be.
• Google has satellite maps, street maps, and hybrid maps. Yahoo! only has regular street maps.

Now for the things that Yahoo! does better:

• Multipoint Routing.
• Yahoo!’s Awesome Yellow Pages.
• A small overview map in the corner to give you an idea of where on the map you are, saving you from having to zoom out to figure out where you are, and then zoom back in.
• Live Traffic overlayed on top of the map.
• Send to phone feature allows directions to be sent to your phone.
• Yahoo! knows MY address. I know, this one is personal, but Google has no idea that my house address even exists. Yahoo does. It doesn’t show my street on the map, but, it gives directions as though it was there.

Both Google and Yahoo! have extensive APIs to allow developers to tap into these resources and provide an unlimited number of services that have yet to even be thought of.

It’s nice to see Yahoo! finally stepping up to the plate and getting back into the lime light. Google has dominated the search market for some time now and their lead is beginning to seep into other services like Maps, E-Mail, Shopping, and the like. This is a great step in the right direction for Yahoo. Along with their tried and true services, recent growth like Flickr, and new applications on the horizon (like their new mail interface that I’d STILL like a beta of), Google is going to start seeing some serious pressure.