Virtual Earth just launched – I had been looking forward to seeing how Microsoft’s implementation would compete agains Google’s Mapping tools and when it loaded up, it looked good. It centred on the States, but then Google Maps did that to start with, so I figured they would solve this over time. Even better, when you scrolled across you could see the world – not just the UK sitting all on its own off the east coast of America as with Google. So onto the searching – I started with something easy – Oxford Street – and shock horror "No results were found in the current view. Try zooming out". Searches for other content brought back US addresses.. Yes, as always seems to be the case with Microsoft’s MSN group, content is minimal outside the US – non existant when it comes to Virtual Earth. It is shocking to me that a company the size of Microsoft cannot get localised content sorted out. It took them years to bring out hotmail.co.uk, MSN UK is still a huge disappointment when compared to MSN US, MY MSN – even though I am using the URL http://uk.my.msn.com/ (note the UK), it insists on providing me US sports and news from Fox and MSNBC. So guess which services I am using? Here’s hoping that they update Virtual Earth quicker than they sort out My MSN.. Minor Update: If you scroll around, the map never seems to completely download – there seems to always be one or 2 squares that does not show. Anyone else seeing this?