Comments on: Rumours of Mapquest’s demise were greatly exaggerated

By: Denis Canuel

Denis Canuel — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:09:36 +0000

It’s funny because most non-geeks that I know use MapQuest and most (if not all) geeks that I know use Google Map.

Different markets, different products I guess. I should probably start BabyBoomerMaps.com as that sounds like a nice niche.

By: blork

blork — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 16:43:40 +0000

Are you seeing the same Mapquest that I am? It seems pretty upgraded to me. It’s true that the landing page is pretty grim, but once you get a map, it’s pretty good. Nice and clear, easily zoomed and panned.

Last time I looked at Mapquest (must be two or three years ago) you couldn’t even pan by grabbing the map; you had to use the arrow buttons. Plus the map itself was a set size on the page (way too small). But the one I’m looking at now is grabbable and expands dynamically when you expand the browser window. It’s almost as easy to use as Google’s (although you can’t zoom with the mouse wheel), and almost as elegant.

But I’m as surprised as you are to hear it’s still the market leader.

By: Ronin

Ronin — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 05:34:51 +0000

Your hunch was correct though: Google Maps is #1 worldwide, with Mapquest nowhere to be seen.

By: mikel

mikel — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:57:09 +0000

Yeah, I’m sure it’s all a Google plot against Mapquest, and not the fact that Mapquest hasn’t upgraded their basic map presentation in years, nor is it because their search results are pretty much useless.

By: name

name — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 21:31:22 +0000

gros connard :D

By: Mr. Obvious

Mr. Obvious — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:31:28 +0000

Uh… great. Assuming something is popular because your friends use it is NOT a marketing best practice. Assuming something is not popular because you don’t use it is just as silly. Mapquest is still the market leader for lots of reasons. Interesting that the Hitwise article points out–but you fail to mention–that a very large portion of Google’s map traffic comes from Google search results. Recently, Google stopped sending mapping traffic to Mapquest unless a user searched explicitly for Mapquest.com. Can’t blame them, but the result is that Google’s map traffic went up and Mapquest’s went down by the same amount, and not for any user preference reasons. To your parting shot about incumbency status… sometimes incumbents (present administration excluded) are in place because they were–and are–valid and relevant.