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I've been following the evolution of Google Maps for a while now. You can tell it's a killer app when people begin developing more applications around it and using it in ways the original developer never guessed.

Here are some of my favorite Google Map apps :

My recent favorite: Live streaming New York traffic cams integrated with Google Maps.

Track your GPS enabled vehicle live.

Use Craigslist home listings with Google Maps Cheap, plentiful phone cams with GPS flooding the market have spawned Geobloggers. Thousands of shots from GPS enabled Phone cams, posted to Flickr accompanied with the longitude/lattitude co-ordinates.

UFO's have been spotted. Still no certainty about what they are, but fun anyway.

Just emerging are: Google Maps merged with recently released prisoner data, Wireless hotspots, nearest grassroots recommended restaurants, cash machines...

Wireless access, Google maps, and tagging will create sticky location-based fountains of useful knowledge.

This is one to watch. There's no telling what will spin off next.

HousingMaps
Google/Yahoo Traffic Maps
Traffic Monitor
Cheap Gas
Chicago Crime Map
Earthquake Viewer
Google Maps Plugin for Mac OS X

can't wait to see what's next :)))

How about...

HousingMaps: Craigslist apartment listings plotted on Google Maps.
Found City: A community-generated map of interesting places in New York City.
Google Sightseeing: A blog that shows "the best tourist spots in the world via Google Maps' satellite imagery."
Cheap Gas: Find cheap gas prices, powered by gasbuddy and Google Maps.
GoogleTraffic:

Think of the advertising revenue that these sites are getting, and that they are the first sites that are taking advantage of this technology. Real-estate agents can give you a map of all the open houses with locations that could be given to clients. Gas prices? Well, you could map out pricing on your website with all your station locations with current prices. Your imagination is the only limitation...

Further, with google, you can do cool things like http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/ and http://labs.google.com/ridefinder.

Microsoft has had the MapPoint Web Services product for several years now - with it you can make complex mapping web applications that utilize the excellent MapPoint mapping engine for graphing. Unfortunately it isn't a free service (there is a fairly substantial start-up fee, and then you have to buy transactions in bulk), so you don't see the amateur freebie apps appearing for it, but it has been out there for some time.

Via web-services?
I guess not! Further, with google, you can do cool things like http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/ and http://labs.google.com/ridefinder.
I betcha MSN's service will not be that flexible. But, I guarantee that it will have all kinds of bells and whistles. (some may really like 45 deg tilt views).
Right now, google works for me. Let's see how MSFT's presentation is, when it comes to fruit!

a howto which describes, how to combine Criagslist with Google Maps similar to the site mentioned inn the summary (http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/)

Here are some google sightseeing sites- mine first, of course!

perljam.net/notes/interesting-google-satellite-map s/

http://www.paulrademacher.com/housing/
www.shreddies.org/gmaps/
cryptome.org/usndc-eyeball.htm
del.icio.us/knodi/google_maps
www.returnofdesign.com/feature.php?article=12
gmaps.nicj.net/

-ted

even cooler: check out the first google map hack (it even blew the pants of the google maps crew):

http://paulrademacher.com/housing/

www.paulrademacher.com/housing

A cool combination of Craigslist housing listing and Google maps. Seems to be very well done.