february 2009 archives

Monday, February 23, 2009

Google beats MapQuest on home turf

In the US online mapping market, Google Maps has finally managed to take a lead over MapQuest with 42.2 million to 41.5 million monthly unique visitors, according to the latest comScore's report on traffic data for January 2009. Also Mike Blumenthal confirmed Google Maps has surpassed Mapquest based on numbers from Compete.com. The US was one of the last significant internet markets where Google was still the incumbent after Google Maps had overtaken Whereis.com in Australia by November 2007.

Hitwise analyst Heather Hopkins presents a slightly different view, indicating that Google Maps edges closer to MapQuest for sure, but MapQuest still leads with a market share of 39.49% to Google's 35.67%. Whichever numbers you take, the overall situation is clear: Mapquest simply isn't the unrivaled champion anymore in the US online mapping market and Google does whatever it takes to get there as we see in other markets. For example, Google Maps South Korea launched in November last year. On its quest to dethrone the Korean search engine Naver, Google Maps has recently even partnered with Yahoo Local Search in South Korea!

Former AOL executive John McKinley seems to indicate MapQuest had better throw in the towel already in his article MapQuest — A Symbol Of Everything That's Gone Wrong. However, he also gives some free advice about where MapQuest should be heading. I feel his second piece of advice is particularly interesting:

Find your voice in the market: maybe strive to be the most accurate directions on the web.

Since both Google Maps and MapQuest have draggable routes, and MapQuest's long history in this space, it is well-positioned to find its own niche. Not being the number one mapping website anymore doesn't mean that it's the end of the game. As we have seen here in Europe, mapping websites like Multimap, ViaMichelin, and Mappy are still there to play a role. Hopefully, MapQuest has still some ad revenues coming in to support developing more features, both for its online and mobile presence! I have to concur with Adena Schutzberg here as she points out on All Points Blog: I'm not sure the new features are drawing new users at MapQuest, but they may well slow some users from leaving.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Next steps for online mapping newbies

The last few days, the new kids on the block TomTom Route Planner and Nokia Maps on Ovi have both made some further steps. As of last Thursday, TomTom has slightly opened the website removing the need to log-in for Dutch online visitors only. Nokia was a little less cautious and released a major update of Nokia Maps 3.0. From an online mapping perspective, the most important improvement is the addition of travel directions to the website.

Be aware, to access the TomTom Route Planner, you do still have to log-in in case your IP address puts you outside the Netherlands, though. Other countries will follow shortly. Expect the countries where TomTom already launched HD Traffic to be the first in line (i.e. Germany, France, Switzerland, and the UK).

It's unfortunately rather obvious, that the new travel directions functionality has only recently been added to Maps on Ovi. Clicking the Routing button on the right reveals the pane sliding in from the right, pushing back the map. Of course, you can choose to Drive or Walk and select to take the Fastest , Shortest, or Economic route. Furthermore, you can select which parts of the road network should be considered or avoid when planning a route: tunnels, ferries, freeways, and toll roads. Not sure why it's so much in your face: I just want to go from A to B... Don't make me think! Having set your options, you can find waypoints. Usually, the term waypoint refers to a point between major points on a route, as along a track, typically between the origin and the destination of your route. However, the usage here indicates that the term does not only refer to the intermediary locations, but also to the origin and destination of your route. Once you have provided two locations, the directions are generated. You can also search for single locations using the box in the upper left corner and then add these to a new or existing route. Routes can also be saved in your Favourites.

Another addition is that you can have the weather forecast appear on the map. However, it is not obvious for what area the forecast is valid if you have zoomed out. Upon loading the 5.7 Mb (!) browser plug-in, a Traffic button shortly pops up next to the Weather button. I look forward to seeing the traffic actually appear on the map as well!

Monday, February 09, 2009

Mapping Worlds maps USA

Did you know most UFO sightings were in California instead of New Mexico and that Texas has the highest number of Wal-mart stores? The new website SHOW®/USA maps over 140 topics using cartograms, i.e. states are resized in proportion to a particular attribute. SHOW®/USA is part of the broader SHOW®/WORLD initiative by the Amsterdam-based company Mapping Worlds. It has quite a reputation for creating cartograms, see for example the Online Atlas of the Millennium Development Goals and the AIDS Clock commissioned by the World Bank and the UNFPA respectively.

The 141 cartograms are grouped in five categories: People, Planet, Business, Politics, and Living. Each category contains four to six sub-categories. Each sub-category eventually lists a number of cartograms. This makes for a structured navigation. There is also a Next button that facilitates stepping through the cartograms one after the other. The navigation may be sometimes too rigid in case you are looking for a particular map you came across before, but forgot to which category it belongs to. A sixth category Your Maps contains selected cartograms that were suggested by visitors to the website.

Each cartogram comes with a title, a short description, an abbreviated and extended data source description, and a total for the entire USA. Users can manipulate a table to sort the states alphabetically and by rank for the particular attribute. Furthermore, users can leave a comment, link or embed the animation and download the source data or a static image of the cartogram. Finally, most cartograms come with a suggestion for further reading on that topic, linking off to the Amazon online book store.

The map of the USA is divided in five areas, each with a distinct colour (Midwest, North East, South, South West, and West). Upon selecting a topic from the navigation menu, each state is then resized in proportion to the particular value for that topic. A Resize button allows users to restore the states to their geographic position and original size. Hovering the mouse over the states, a balloon appears with the name of the state, the value and the relative contribution to the total value for the USA. They can change the viewport of the map by re-centering the map using the Zoom in button. The viewport shifts to the location specified by the user and the map is magnified by a predetermined scale factor. Another option to change the viewport is by selecting a particular state from the list in the table to the right of the map. The viewport then changes to contain just the selected state.

All in all, the website is a great resource for information and presents some amazing cartograms. Especially, the animation of the cartograms emphasises the inner workings of this map type. The tools to download, link and embed the source data and maps shows that Web 2.0 has brought cartography more than just slippy maps!