Online Maps

Taking a short break from work, here is a not so comprehensive listing of "web 2.0" online mapping sites.

http://maps.google.com : The original. When google maps first came out, I remember being amazed by what google had been able to do with a webpage. They also have satellite images, with overlayed streets. Although they were the first, and they are still the fastest, google maps feature set has been superseded.

http://maps.ask.com : This one is actually my favorite. It is almost as fast as google, and it allows for adding push-pins at any location, has the same satellite/hybrid view, and calculates routes nicely. It even allows you to add stops, move the stops, and rearrange the stops. And you can even convert the directions to walking directions (avoiding freeways and the like).

http://maps.yahoo.com/beta/ : I find this one quite annoying. It's based on Flash, so it requires the flash plugin, and also responds a little slower to it's AJAX enabled counterparts.
It has a similar concept of many stops on a route, but you can't easily move them, nor is the interface as intuitive or snappy. Zooming in and out do this annoying scale, and then load at the new zoom level, looks pretty hokey to me. The map itself also doesn't look as smooth

http://local.live.com/ : This is Microsoft's version. The maps look nice, you can add pushpins, it even will show you traffic data on the freeways. However, you can't use those pushpins in a route? Why? I'm not really sure what the pushpins are for if you can't use them in driving directions. They have a really nift "Birds Eye View" of some areas where you get the satellite image tilted at an angle, so you can see building sides. Nifty, but not available for most areas.

Conclusion: Google Maps is still the best I think when all you want is a quick map, or even a quick map between two points. But as soon as you want to specify stops, place pushpins, or do anything a little more complicated, use maps.ask.com. IMHO.