O’Reilly Radar notes the fact that the maps are not only shareable, but searchable.

Free GeoTools tests the accuracy of position markers generated in My Maps when they’re imported, as KML, into Google Earth: the test location was off by about 10 metres.

There’s been a bit of consternation, apparently, about the impact of My Maps on the “social mapping” sites built on the Google Maps platform — viz., that the ease of use of My Maps will make Frappr, Platial et al. redundant. Donna Bogatin sums up, and dismisses, this reaction, as does Dare Obasanjo (via Scoble).

All Points Blog draws a comparison between these mashup sites and the “vertical” (specialized, niche) third-party add-ons to ESRI applications:

Many of the mashups that are being (potentially) disrupted by My Maps are horizontal. At some level, and I apologize in advance is this is too simplistic) they are “put dots on the map” (for one reason or another) apps. Horizontal features will in time migrate to the core of software. Someone with an MBA can tell us why, I’m sure. And, those in this space, developers and their funders, had to see this coming, didn’t they? Especially since Microsoft and Ask had offered such tools for some time?

Platial, for one, is not fazed by the new challenge. This sort of thing has shown up in other software fields — for example, when a feature gets folded into the main OS. Most of the outrage is generated by people other than the developers affected. Generally speaking, they know the drill.