Thanks to LiveSide member derviskemal for noticing that the Live Maps header has changed.  Here’s the new look:

…and what we were seeing up until a few days ago:

Much more in keeping with the overall new look of Live Search.  We wrote earlier about inconsistencies across Live Search properties, glad to see at least one of them is being fixed.

In another Live Search related story, Danny Sullivan had an interesting breakdown of the latest Compete numbers on search share in the US.  While the overall numbers told the same old story, Compete took a new approach this month to Live Search Club.

Rather than either including the Live Search Club numbers along with Live Search (which skewed the search share numbers unfairly, some thought), or dropping them out entirely, which is what has been happening, this time Compete separated out Live Search Club but included it in the results as a separate category:

While the main purpose of Live Search Club is to play games and win prizes, and not search, it’s interesting to note that Live Search Club beats AOL search, and is nearly on par with Ask.com.  Maybe there’s something to this Live Search Club business after all.