Threadwatch and ThomasB report that Google has extended the GoogleMaps application to cover many more countries in Europe. Then have even followed route E30 all the way to Moscow!
As Thomas writes, the implications for local search are significant. With multilingual searches and user reviews this can become a useful tool for companies marketing into the EU zone.
Of course this will also open up new opportunities for API mash-ups and help drive the Google brand in these areas. The results for Moscow are still some way behind the local engines (searching for hotels in Google against a hotel search in Yandex as an example) but as always, it will be interesting to watch this develop.
Nick Wilsdon
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