It seems to me like there are four main options when it comes to online mapping:

1) Mapquest
2) Google Maps
3) Live Search Maps (formerly Windows Live Local) aka Virtual Earth
4) Yahoo! Maps

First of all, I think that mapquest is outdated, and I don’t see Yahoo! maps as having anything special over Google or Live Search.  So that leaves me with options 2 and 3.  Google Maps is nice in the fact that it is fast, and you have really good satellite coverage around the world.  In addition, there are street side imagery which is quite cool (but also a privacy issue).  Live Search Maps has good satellite coverage in the US but some countries it is really lacking.  However, Live Search Maps also has Bird’s Eye Imagery which is imagery from a plane that they took as they flew over an area.  You can also see buildings in 3D, and the quality is much better than Google Maps in that regard (They actually designed a specific camera for the job!)  Live Search Maps does not have street side imagery yet, but if you go to preview.local.live.com you will see that they are working on it (that webpage has been there since before street side imagery by Google I believe..)

So I would say in this round that the vote goes to Live Search Maps.  What do you think is the superior mapping service?

I would definitely say Google Maps. The reason is that it is so easy to just get directions and well, it is the only online mapping tool I use. There are many features, as some of you know, about Google Maps, but I do like the default. I have used it many times to get directions to the places I was going and it is so accurate, of course, and handy. I can easily find directions in less than 15 minutes using Google Maps. It truly is amazing how easy we can now find directions to places we need to go. I rarely even use a real map anymore because with the internet, Google Maps is fantastic.

I have to say Live Search Maps. the bird view is great, a high quality image taken from a plane of the area. It’s way better then satalite view. and also it’s 3D Buildings is so wonderful. it’s just great.

tsunzilla - 06 June 2008 03:11 AM

I have to say Live Search Maps. the bird view is great, a high quality image taken from a plane of the area. It’s way better then satalite view. and also it’s 3D Buildings is so wonderful. it’s just great.

The 3D buildings are really impressive, as long as our graphics card can handle the rendering!  On my old laptop I don’t even try it because it will crash.  Google Maps is going to be getting 3D functionality soon though, which will mean two sites with online 3D maps:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/28/AR2008052802539.html

Google Earth has had 3D buildings for awhile now, but a lot of them are grey and just a representation of the building.  Users can submit their own 3D objects to replace the buildings, but Microsoft takes this one step further and built cameras made specifically for taking 3D images!

Another website that I just found is called EveryScape at http://www.everyscape.com/—with this you can walk the streets of a city, and you can even go inside different buildings!  Looks like they will be continuing to expand to different cities, but they have already done many cities in the US and also in Asia and Europe.

I prefer Google Maps because it’s pretty straight-forward.  Just enter in your starting address and destination address and submit it .  It quickly comes up with the directions and shows the map right next too it.  It isn’t cluttered with Ads and loads directions quickly.  I’ve recently started using Map Quests again and I think Map Quests is better.  It saves your starting address so you don’t have to re-enter it the next time you return.  It even has a toolbar for Internet Explorer which allows you to just input your address and come up with the driving directions.  It also gives more options than the others map websites, like avoiding toll roads for example.  It’s simple to print a printer-friendly version of the driving directions too.