map this!

Google Maps now features New Zealand street level maps. (Hat Tip: NZBC).

Doesn't (yet) have the functionality to search for locations or driving directions. They'll get there, presumably, which has got to worry the other players in the NZ online map business - Wises and TUMONZ - who have both invested a lot of time and money into their services. We'll still be typing in the above for some time, out of habit. That'll stop when it intergrates into the main google search like GImages has.

However - and it is a big however - Google's product is a lot more fun to use, and it's open to mashing, allowing groups of people & businesses to create a common set of places, directions and labels. Imagine a retailer being able to provide custom directions to their customers from the shoppers home to the store, complete with icons signposting various store locations, layered with phone, carparking and service information, all for the cost of modifying their website. Current uses are, as always, less practical than all that. If the Earth were a Sandwich asks just that, and a lot a time can be wasted there. Google Maps Mania is the blog dedicated to mashing GMaps. A more cynical view here.

Yahoo! has provided a maps service for years, and I'm sure altavista or excite did at one stage too. Google's Mashing API is the killer app for maps (at the least), and while the other USA players may be able adapt to the coming of Google, the local players won't.