Move over, Google Earth? Hot on the heels of Google’s spectacular satellite imaging service, MSN has launched its own local search service called MSN Virtual Earth, featuring satellite images and maps which integrate with MSN’s local search results.

While the service is called Virtual Earth, it is currently really only “Virtual U.S.A.”, since satellite images are only available for the United States. MSN has said that it is planning to expand the service globally in the future. For now, MSN Virtual Earth is certainly no serious competition to Google Earth, its broad global coverage and cool bird’s eye view and zoom features. The one think I like about MSN’s service is that it automatically overlays street names onto the aerial images, which Google Earth doesn’t do.

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