People have been speculating about it for weeks and now it's live: MapQuest Vibe. With the launch of the new neighborhood-discovery site MapQuest is striking out in a promising direction. It's not a new social network, as some speculated, but it incorporates social input into a larger algorithmic-based framework that generates a score for nearly every neighborhood in the US, as well as local places. MQ Vibe is launching with 50,000 neighborhoods to start. The idea is certainly compelling: to rank various neighborhoods and local businesses as a way to help residents and tourists (and mayb [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile | Top News

Following the success of its iPhone app, Mapquest has released a free, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation app for Android handsets. The new app differs in a couple ways from its older iPhone sibling. Most significantly it takes advantage of Android's speech capabilities and includes OpenStreetMap data, which allows the app to be used outside the US and results in some enhanced local mapping within the US. I've had a chance to use the app for the past 24 hours and can report that it generally works well, although there are a few areas and features that are rough around the edges. Mapquest' [...]

Related Topics: AOL: Local | AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Top News

You might not have thought of it this way but the old MapQuest was mostly about driving directions. The new Mapquest (launching today) is about local search and an expanded range of capabilities and use cases. There's a new look and feel, a new back end, a single search box and a new "brand." Mapquest is the number two mapping site; Google having toppled it from atop the mapping throne in early 2009 after years of complacency and "feature neglect" at the AOL-owned property. But now with a new boss at AOL, fewer ads and a new focus on the consumer experience, Mapquest hopes to build new o [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Top News

Yesterday was the first day of trading for the "new" AOL, an independent company with a market cap of $2.5 billion dollars. When AOL "bought" TimeWarner a decade ago in an all-stock transaction worth $182 billion there was a near consensus that the combined company represented the future of media and publishing. It made a lot of sense -- conceptually. But the marriage never worked out and AOL saw its fortunes decline literally and figuratively as newer companies ascended over the last 10 years. Now, with former Googler Tim Armstrong at the helm, the company's independent strategy is focused [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | AOL: Local | AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile

AOL's MapQuest has been in mobile mapping longer than any of its rivals, but it's playing catch up when it comes to the iPhone, which remains the most important smartphone platform for the time being. This morning, MapQuest launched the iPhone version of its MapQuest4Mobile app (launches iTunes). Prior to this app the company has offered an optimized browser-based version for both the iPhone and Android. MapQuest4Mobile as an app has been available for BlackBerry for some time. The new iPhone MapQuest4Mobile app offers a rich environment with innovative new features. There's a great deal of [...]

Related Topics: AOL: Local | AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile