Yahoo! Maps Makeover

Yahoo! was really the pioneer in dynamic mapping as the center of local search. Of late the company has been upstaged by Google and Microsoft which have placed big bets on 3-D and personalization capabilities. However, today Yahoo is introducing a range of features and upgrades to Maps. I write about them in some detail at SEL.

Among the highlights:

• Neighborhoods are color coded to distinguish them (only in SF and NY currently)
• European driving directions are now accessible from the US
• Driving directions have been enhanced in a number of ways
• Terrain detail has been added and is visible when sufficiently zoomed out

Here’s a color-coded map of Midtown Manhattan and surrounding neighborhoods:

Overall I liked all the changes. The one nagging criticism I have of the “broadband version” of Yahoo Maps is the use of too many fields/boxes. I think three boxes makes things a bit confusing:

Yahoo has also done some very interesting things with maps on its Travel site (”ReMaps“) and also on its experimental Berkeley Labs site.

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Here’s more from the Yahoo! Local Blog.