Drawing in Google Maps vs drawing in Live Local: Which is better?
Two weeks ago, Google added the ability to subscribe to GeoRSS in Google Maps. A few days ago, Microsoft updated its Live Local mapping tool, adding the ability to publish your placemark collection as GeoRSS. Other improvements included enhanced drawing tools, but also a wholly underwhelming ability to see Virtual Earth 3D in Windows versions of Firefox (once again missing the entire point of using a web browser for delivering content). And now, this morning, Google has updated its Maps product yet again, adding “My Maps”, user-generated collections of annotated placemarks, lines, and polygons. This is something of a catch-up maneuver for Google, or, more kindly, a change of tack: Until now, Google was happy to let third party developers use the Google Maps API to produce such services. Now it seems that Live Local/Live Search/Virtual Earth’s collections feature (available since May 2006) has goaded Google into offering a similar default functionality. This sets the stage for a compari
