Draggable routes are nothing new, of course. Google Maps has offered this feature for quite a while. Compared to Google Maps, the Microsoft implementation of this feature is slightly more difficult to use. Google Maps always displays a little button on a route that moves relative to the user's cursor. On Bing Maps, users have to be more precise when it comes to grabbing a point on their route where they want to deviate from the computed route. Still, this is a welcome addition to Bing Maps.

Embeds

Embedding Bing Maps is now as easy as clicking one button and copying and pasting the embed code. The best feature here is the ability to customize these embeds. Users can select different sizes, whether to display a static or draggable map, as well as different map styles (road map vs. satellite imagery). Bing Maps also generates a link to the map that can be shared by email.

As Google continues to enhance its mapping products and now even produces its own map data in the US, Bing Maps and others will have to stay on their toes. This update to Bing Maps mostly brings Microsoft back on par with Google with regards to features.

Bing always offered a number of features that Google didn't offer, including high-resolution aerial photos, and a Google Earth-like 3D view with 3D models in the browser. Currently, however, Google is adding more features (like traffic for more roads) and improving its maps at a faster rate than anybody else and it will be interesting to see if Microsoft will be able to keep up with this pace.

To generate the maps, the small team of Micello users, which numbers only about a dozen employees, takes whatever maps of various businesses, colleges, and other large indoor locations are available and manually maps them out for use in the mobile application. The process of converting an online PDF, for example, to a mapped locale in Micello takes a couple of hours, explains Micello co-founder Anil Agarwal.

To start, Micello will provide maps for the San Francisco Bay area where they already have 150 indoor locations mapped. They will then proceed to map the rest of California and, following that, they'll move onto other major metropolitan areas in the U.S. By the end of next year, they plan to have over 5000 places mapped across the country.

An interesting side note about Micello is how fast they've managed to create this new and incredibly useful resource. They revealed their alpha only months ago at the 2009 JavaOne conference held in June. At the time, the founders were simply looking for feedback as to whether people thought this would be an application worth pursuing. The response was overwhelmingly positive, leading the company to move forward with their plans to create what is Micello today.

In addition to navigating the maps, aided by the iPhone's GPS to show you where you are, Micello users can also locate their Facebook, Twitter, and iPhone contacts within the map community and share their stories, feedback, and other notes about the places they visit. Users can submit error reports, too, if something isn't accurate and the Micello team will make the correction.

Premium Offerings and Future Plans

Further down the road, premium features will be available to businesses and other organizations which will allow them to annotate their listings with additional information, whether that's what speaker begins his presentation at the convention hall downtown or what Macy's will have on sale today. The application may even tap into the "alerting" feature of mobile devices to pop-up optional alerts to customers informing them of a special event or sale.

Versions of Micello for Blackberry, Android, and WebOS platforms are only months away as is a Facebook application. For more information, stay tuned to micello.com for updates.

By using a rectangle that conforms to a building's geometry, Street View suddenly also feels a lot more three-dimensional than ever before. According to Google's announcement, Street View can do this thanks to using laser point clouds and by analyzing the differences between consecutive pictures.

Another cool new feature is the ability to go back to your starting point by simply clicking on the return arrow in the Address Box.

As is so often the case for this kind of product, the best way to get a feel for it is to simply head over to Google Maps and drag the little Street View guy to some interesting locations.

More 3D in Google Map's Future?

Given that Google is already surfacing some 3D data in Street View now, it is interesting to speculate what else the company could do with this data. Current 3D maps are often a bit clunky, but at this point, Google's Street View cars have covered an enormous amount of data, and by using a technique similar to Microsoft's PhotoSynth, Google could create an even more compelling 3D experience. Photosynth creates almost 3D-like representations of scenes by stitching together photos shot of the same object or landscape from different angles.

Canpages.ca, the Canadian business directory listing service similar to the Yellow Pages in the U.S., is home to the new mapping service where it's accessed by performing a search on their homepage. After your search results appear, they are accompanied by a traditional map of the business location. At the top of the map, you'll see an option to select "Street View" from the menu bar when it's available. You can also click on any of the blue highlighted streets to delve directly into Street View at that particular spot. As with Google's Street View, you can click on arrows to move forward and backward and there's even a small cartoon figure that appears on the map for reference.

Although the CanPages' Street View maps offer many similarities to Google's, what's most notable about this launch are the many differences between the two services. For example, all of the CanPages maps have been created using high resolution photography. Google, on the other hand, has only used high-res imagery in a select handful of international cities including San Francisco, Paris, and Seattle.

CanPages's maps also offer a fullscreen view which you can use to fully immerse yourself into the city scene. However, don't try to tilt the camera up to the sky - that's one feature the CanPages maps don't have - they're limited when it comes to panning vertically.

Another feature of the new Street View maps is a configuration menu which allows you to customize settings like image sharpness, brightness, quality, and projection or the curved effect. You can also choose to turn on or off additional visual aids, the blue navigation dots, or the grid.

Perhaps the nicest feature, though, is the pedestrian maps. Captured by a team of photographers who traveled on foot with shoulder-mounted cameras, the CanPages maps let you explore parts of cities where cars can't go. For now, this allows you to travel down pedestrian walkways, but the company hopes to use their unique camera set up in the future to film hotel lobbies, retail stores, shopping malls, and parks.

CanPages also made privacy a priority from the start. When Google launched their service, faces and license plates were plainly visible. Only recently have they responded to people's concerns and began to blur these images. On the CanPages maps, however, not only are these items blurred, there's also a link at the bottom-right corner of the map that lets anyone submit concerns about that particular image.

A Better Street View

Considering that Google's Street View technology has still not made its way to Canada, the CanPages maps provide a good alternative - actually, given the features offered, we could even say they provide a better one. For now, CanPages Street View maps encompass the cities of Vancouver, Whistler, and Squamish (all in British Columbia). The company plans to expand to Toronto and Montreal next, followed then by as much of Canada as possible.

Image credits: krisabel.ctv.ca

Thanks to the new layers for the ocean floor, you can now dive below the surface and explore the seafloor in 3D. Google has also added a large number of additional data points with videos and still images to these new layers.

Historical Maps

The new 'historical maps' feature allows you to see how the geography of a certain area has changed over time. Just click on the new clock icon in the toolbar and a new slider appears that lets you move back and forth in time. Google is able to draw upon a rich database of historical images, though how far you can go back in time depends on the specific region you are looking at. At least of the U.S. and Europe, we were often able to go back twenty or more years, but for other areas, the data often didn't go back much further than five or six years.

Touring

Another new feature in Google Earth is the ability to record your own tours while browsing the maps. After clicking the new record button, all your movements in Google Earth will be recorded and you can then play them back later or share them with others.

Mars

Also new is a 3D map of Mars, which includes high-resolution images from NASA, 3D terrain data, and annotations for landing sites and other interesting features. Google already offered a version of Google Maps for Mars and the Google Earth user community has been offering a Mars layer for Google Earth since 2006.

For iPhone users, a new app called Say Where from Dial Directions can help you get directions and other location-based content just by speaking to your phone.

With Say Where, you can say an address, intersection, business name or category, or point-of-interest and the app will show you results from their various content partners. Those partners, which include Google Maps, MapQuest, Ask.com, CitySearch, Yelp, and others, will provide both directions and location-based info like user reviews.

It should be noted that this app isn't entirely hands-free - you still have to touch it at times. Of course, to launch the app you have to touch it, but you also have to touch and hold your finger on the screen when speaking. The video below gives you an idea of how this works:

Even though the app requires some interaction, using it is a lot easier than having to use the iPhone's keyboard to type in information while also trying to keep your eyes on the road. For anyone who relies on their iPhone to get them from Point A to Point B, Say Where looks like a handy app to add to your homescreen.

In addition, Mapstraction "fills some holes each provider's current offerings" - meaning if a certain mapping provider doesn't offer a particular feature that another one does, Mapstraction turns to open source solutions (for the most part) to provide the feature needed.

Those are the technical details, but what's really impressive about Mapstraction are the demos. Take, for example, this demo, a single page showing several maps. As you move around in one map, the other three also move simultaneously to reflect the changes that take place in the map you're using. This is a great way to view comparisons of the different mapping systems side-by-side.

Another feature of Mapstraction allows for tile layer support. This feature lets you toggle different overlays on top of a mapping provider's map, like this one. Clicking the links below this map let you toggle different overlays on top of the Google Map to see maps from 1950, 1912, and 1877.

This demo takes you to a full screen map where you can switch from mapping provider to mapping provider by selecting the name in the box displayed in the bottom-left corner. (Note: to exit the demo, you'll need to know your browser's keyboard shortcut to go "back").

Mapstraction isn't exactly new, having debuted back in 2006. It's currently in use in places like the UK's Nestoria, Mapufacture, Reuters Labs, and even powers a WordPress and MT plugin called GeoPress, which adds geo-tagging to your posts and pages.  However, we would like to see some more Mapstraction mashups - so if you've built one, let us know in the comments.

The Google Maps team just announced the addition of a new feature to Google Maps: the ability to contribute to and edit maps through Google Map Maker. Users can now edit and moderate various map features, including roads, lakes, power lines, and bike trails among others.

While Google already allows users to create and share new map layers through 'My Maps', this is the first time it is actively looking for help in creating maps (almost) from the ground up.

Basically, these are all countries that could, as the Google Maps team puts it, "benefit tremendously from local knowledge and expertise that you and other map makers posses, and we're excited to see how you put that to use."

Those maps that are currently available for editing vary greatly in the detail already available for them. Barbados already has a relatively complete set of roads, while Vietnam is almost completely devoid of any details outside of the major cities and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are nothing but gray blobs on the map so far.

The editing functions of Map Maker are extremely easy to use and it is probably only a question of time before more users start using their local knowledge to add to these often bare maps. For most of us, however, the real question is when Google will open up the rest of its maps for editing at this low level - or if this is even desirable.

A substantial portion of the web's creativity can be found in the Flash developer community.

Too much Flash can be very annoying, but offering Google Maps in Flash only makes sense. We're excited to see what developers do with it, and we're far from alone in that excitement.

Greg Sadetsky, CEO of map savvy open source R&D lab Poly9, wrote this morning that "This is great news. There has been a long wait for Google to release an official Flash API for their popular Maps product." ZDNet's Google-watching Garett Rogers appeared to have unearthed the API hours before it was presented at the conference, that's how we knew to start looking around.

Mapping is Hot

The mapping world is exploding right now; from the release of the giant Yahoo! Geo-location database API this week, to the release of control over KML mapping markup by Google last month and the groundswell of developer interest in location-aware applications and frameworks.

Throw some Flash Google Maps into the mix and things are liable to really get interesting. Check out this adorable little Flash Map below.

GeoXtract doesn't require you do do any manual processing of your data or programming and you don't even have to modify your data set in any particular way prior to using the program.The map created by the program can be published to the geoXtract web site, to your own site, or simply saved to your computer.

Here's an example of a map made with geoXtract showing Clearwater, Florida beach motels:

Each map created can be saved as a "project" within the program, so if you ever need to recreate or update the map, it's easy to do.

The application comes in four versions: Starter, Plus, Pro, and Enterprise. The Starter version is free and lets you work with .XLS and .CSV data sets. You're also limited to 3 saved projects with no more than 100 records each. The paid versions increase these limits while also enabling the ability to work with various other file types, like .MDBs or even OLEB/ODBC in the Enterprise version.

You can download the application for yourself from here.

Though basing a business on a browser extension might seem crazy, for the select few companies highlighted in Mozilla events like this it can lead to a big increase in user numbers, especially if support from Mozilla continues.

The Winners

The most sophisticated winner may be the most niche-targeted, and that's the Minimap Sidebar Extension, by Tony Farndon from the UK. This extension lets users do all kinds of things by dragging and dropping map and location data in their browsers. Whether it's just text identifying a location or a whole KML file, Minimap lets you quickly view map data in a wide variety of platforms - from the big online mapping services (G/Y/M) to Google Earth of map mashup maker Platial. User created sidebar maps can also be saved for later reuse. Many readers might not have a daily use for this extension, but I know I might find myself working on a particular project for which this cool tool would be perfect.

SamePlace IM is an XMPP based multiclient IM service with a sidebar display or flyout client. It was built by Massimiliano Mirra in Italy. You can drag and drop images and text into conversations, play games, sketch together and extend SamePlace with an internal scriptlet editor. There's Twitter and OpenID support, too. While Meebo isn't intended for power users, SamePlace clearly is.

Finally, Jay Meattle's Shareaholic lets you quickly post any URL to 13 of the coolest social bookmarking services online. From Ma.gnolia to FriendFeed to Tumblr. It also lets you easily email a link to friends and see how many times it has been tagged in Del.icio.us and Dugg.

I appreciate all of the above, but personally I only foresee myself using the Minimap extension, and that only rarely. It might be a good idea for me to use Shareaholic, too, so that I can get the superior features of Ma.gnolia but participate in the public space of Del.icio.us. I really like the Ma.gnolia submission tool, though. Don't forget to check out the runners up, too, if you love Firefox extensions.

Details will be posted soon for the next contest, Extend Firefox 3 , kicking off in early March.