A July 2008 article in iTWire, Australian mapping technology streets ahead of Google Earth?, claimed that an upstart Australian company would soon be providing more timely mapping data than Google Maps. A few months ago the NearMap demonstration site was launched, and it lives up to the hype.
The company is based in Perth, and there are roughly monthly aerial images of Perth dating from 2007 (in addition to some much older lower resolution pictures). This historical data is easily accessible from a slider and drop-down, in an interface quite similar to the history option of Google Earth. NearMap's advantages over competitor's mapping products are in frequency and timeliness, resolution, and angled ("multiview") images (like Bing's "Bird's Eye" view). If you want to spy on your neighbours, then NearMap is the clear winner.
Although Perth is the area currently best served by NearMap other Australian cities are constantly being added. The lack of breadth of NearMap's offering is its major disadvantage. For me, the best outcome would be for Google to license NearMap's data, so I wouldn't have to switch products depending on the area I was viewing.