Yahoo! Local Maps, currently in beta testing, is tailored for those times when you just want to generate a local map or produce directions. The maps generated here are far more interactive than those made in tandem with searches on Yahoo! Local, which is geared toward helping you search for local events or businesses. Keep in mind, though, that what makes the maps interactive is the use of Flash, so you may need to upgrade to the latest free version of Macromedia Flash Player (Version 6,0,79,0 as of this writing; the PC we initially used for testing had Flash 6). There's also a non-Flash, non-beta version of Local Maps, but it lacks a lot of the snazzy effects available in the Flash-y beta version.

The first feature we fell in love with was the inset zoom window on the main page. An easy-to-adjust slider lets you quickly zoom in and out, from 0.2 miles to the entire continental U.S.

The application uses both Tele Atlas and Navteq data and is particularly rich in map content. You won't, however, find the multiple types of map views (such as bird's-eye views, satellite imagery, or hybrid views) you'd encounter at Google Local or Windows Live Local. Yahoo!'s focus has been on the search capabilities and maps themselves. As with Google's maps, you can easily click and drag the maps in Yahoo! Local Maps (beta), though they are a bit slower and less responsive. If you're a registered Yahoo! user, once you've signed in, the service will open a map of your home address as a default jumping-off place.

Another feature we really like—once we'd discovered it—was being able to click and drag the flags on the map we'd generated during searches. Dragging them from the map into the left-hand search pane we could very simply generate a multi-point itinerary. We could also easily change the order and, best of all, we'd end up with a highlighted route on the map.

A Yahoo! representative explained that everything on this page, as well as much that populates the beta version of Local Maps, was created in response to user feedback and requests. When questioned about a lack of some of the more intriguing things found at the other sites, such as the satellite views and other imagery, the response was that these things aren't among the features most requested by Yahoo! users (though a satellite component is in the works).

In fact, our only real criticism of the site is that some things don't show up in search but will show up on the map if you know where they are and zoom in far enough (we can't just pick on Yahoo! here either; all these new map/search sites suffer the same symptoms). For instance, we had the same trouble finding the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum with Yahoo! Local Maps (beta) that we did with Google. Searching on "Intrepid" brought up lots of businesses with Intrepid in the name, and you could locate the site by digging a bit in the results (under Intrepid Foundation), but you had to dig. Nor could we find the site through combinations of the museum's official name, within quotes or without quotes. Such things can be and generally do get fixed as people provide feedback—one of the truly great aspects of the Web—made even easier by Yahoo!'s "Tell us what you think" feedback box.

We'd have liked a pushpin-type feature on Yahoo! Local Maps (beta) similar to what we found on Windows Live Local. Though a Yahoo! spokesperson told us that it is possible and simple to place multiple markers on our map, we could not figure out how to make the application do this. When you search for a location or business, a marker will be placed there, but that marker is removed when you perform your next search. We also encountered repeated errors when we tried to use a "My Saved Locations" feature.

Even with these hiccups, we really like the over