Yahoo! Maps Upgrades, Microsoft Impresses

I wrote about a range of improvements at Yahoo! Maps over at Search Engine Land. Here are the upgrades according to the Yahoo! Maps & Local Blog:

• New Neighborhood Data at lower zoom levels with:
• 300 cities with new neighborhood data added throughout North America, from Palo Alto, to Chicago, to Toronto, etc.
• 12,000 new neighborhood added, from “Lower East Side” (New York, Milwaukee, Bridgeport) to “Lower Collegetown” (Ithaca)
• Expanded Worldwide Coverage with much improved coverage, especially throughout Eastern Europe
• New POI information - highlighting Schools, Rest areas, Ski Resorts, etc.
  Additional shaded relief levels worldwide
• City label density increased for better usability
• Style improvements such as Hybrid Road and Label colors adjusted for better legibility
• Lighter map tiles – with an average of 30-60% reduction in size

In the process of writing my post I was playing with Google and Microsoft’s Live Maps. I haven’t used Live Maps in a little while, but I plugged in “Soma Sushi” into Yahoo! Maps, Google Maps and Live Maps. Impressively, Live Maps is the only one that really got it right.