Google maps is providing a new tool to allow users to view and search for maps in an amazing and dynamic way. If you haven't seen it you can check it out here: http://maps.google.com. In other news Google recently purchased a company called Keyhole that shows images from space of the world.
It doesn't take a leap of the imagination to see how these services could be combined. I predict that Google will provide the keyhole services as a supliment to it's own maping technology. This will allow you to search and find business on a map and then see what that location looks like from space. This is leaps and bounds beyond both Mapquest and Yahoo maps. The next logical step will be to allow people to purchase location specific advertising so that anyone looking at a map of an area could see ads and links for stores in that area. I suspect this will be done in a similar style and in cooporation with the existing Adwords program. From a UI perspective they will need to design the ads so that they are helpfull but don't interfeer with the main body of the page. We'll see if my prediction holds true.