Kinda ironic that just last night I was talking about how rarely Yahoo makes “small” local search announcements, and here today they throw pie in my face with one such announcement. Thhhpppfftttt yourself, Yahoo.

What is it? The newer, cooler Yahoo Maps is out of beta.

Yep, the new maps definitely a bigger “gee whiz” factor than the old map system, but again, I tip my cap to Yahoo for continuing to win the functionality battle. The newest, coolest “tool” I’ll be using?

Point-to-point-to-point mapping and directions. I remember wanting this back in August at SES in San Jose. I needed to map a route that began at the house where I was staying, went to the conference location, then went to a dinner location, then to a party location, and then back to the house. Five points in all, and I couldn’t do an A-B-C-D-E itinerary with driving directions.

That’s just one of the features – the link above has the full details from the Yahoo Local Search blog.

[tags]yahoo, local search, yahoo maps[/tags]