Live Local’s release makes me think of only one thing, this conversation between Homer, Bart and Lisa on The Simpsons:

Homer: Kids… how would you… like to go to… Blocko Land!? Lisa/Bart: Meh Homer: But… the TV gave me the impression tha.. Bart: We said “meh” Lisa: M-e-h. Meh.

Meh sums it up pretty well. Lets look at reality for a second. Most web mapping geeks pretty much ignore Mapquest these days, but it still commands over 70% of the marketplace. Nothing in Live Local is compelling enough to get anyone to bother changing their routine, not to mention changing URLs is a horrible way to get people to remember your service. From a developers standpoint, Yahoo! Maps has been the only service I’ve seen since Google Maps released their API to grab my attention. You do have to hand it to Microsoft’s technical evangelists for getting the buzz spun up.

M-e-h. Meh.

[tags]livelocal, virtualearth, meh[/tags]