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 | Channel: Mobile

AOL recently soft-launched Love.com, which it advertises as a collection of "topic blogs" that "provide a central view into what the world is loving now." But it's really an SEO play. Give the site any subdomain under the sun, and Love.com will make a new site on-the-fly with content scraped from news sites, blogs, YouTube videos, Twitter messages and more. Like this: Everybody loves cold sores, right? Well, not everybody loves Love.com. Says Dave Naylor: "Approximately 1 bazillion keyword specific subdomains filled with scraped content and ads? Are AOL so desperate that they [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: SEO | SEO: Duplicate Content | SEO: Spamming

Happy Earth Day everyone! Like last year we wanted to post a collection of the logos created by the search engines for today. Here they are: For the animated versions of Yahoo and AOL's logo, see my post at the Search Engine Roundtable and for past years, see 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 and 2004. [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | SEM Industry: General | Yahoo: General

There's already been considerable discussion of the passing of the maps traffic crown from MapQuest to Google Maps. Hitwise, comScore and Compete all show Google Maps as the traffic leader in the category. One could argue with relative confidence that the long-anticipated development is a consequence of two things: Google's ability to refer traffic to its own property and regular innovation at Google Maps with features like Street View, among others. According to a new post on the Hitwise blog, despite Google's traffic advantage, MapQuest retains brand strength and has greater engagement th [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local

Today in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the first day of Spring. The search engines, excluding Yahoo, have special logos for the day. Let me share them with you. Google's logo was designed by Eric Carle: AOL has a Flash animated logo: [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Bing | SEM Industry: Community

Today is St. Patrick's Day and the search engines have created special logos and maps for the day. Let's start of with a collage of logos, that I compiled at the Search Engine Roundtable. The Live Search Blog has a blog post that shows how Live Search Maps has several maps that shows few collections of favorite destinations for St Patrick's Day. For example, Boston, New York, Chicago and Seattle are some of the US cities that have parades today. Finally, Andrew Girdwood spotted some risky images on Google for a search on happy st patrick's day. I saw them myself last night, but Go [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: General

One of Google's longest serving executives, Tim Armstrong, is departing the company to become AOL's new chairman and CEO, replacing existing chair and CEO Randy Falco. From the AOL release: Tim Armstrong, Google Senior Vice President, has been named Chairman and CEO of AOL, LLC, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes announced today. Current AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco and President and COO Ron Grant plan to leave the company after a transition period. In making the announcement Mr. Bewkes said: "Tim is the right executive to move AOL into the next phase of its evolu [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: Industry | Features: Analysis | Google: Employees | Top News

MapQuest has beefed up its business locator tool. A scrolling vertical bar now appears on the upper right of every map allowing users to populate any map quickly and simply with different categories of businesses or, in the case of advertisers, with specific brand locations. Here's what happens when you click the logo for Holiday Inn on a New York map: Note how Holiday Inn also has the display ad on the right side of the page (see below). That's very deliberate and will be a feature of advertising on the business locator: Users can also add multiple layers of business type [...]

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

As part of a wave of new features, MapQuest late last year introduced My MapQuest, a personalization tool for the PC side of the business. It subsequently renamed that offering "My Places" and has now launched it in mobile. My Places for MapQuest4Mobile offers a rich user experience and the ability to save maps and directions. It also provides a bridge between the mobile-PC divide by offering consistency across platforms. MapQuest4Mobile, the application, is currently available to BlackBerry devices (and free), although the company plans to roll it out rapidly to other platforms includin [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | AOL: Mobile | Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local

Valentine’s Day is being celebrated around the world and today, Google had not one, but two different logos, depending on where in the world you accessed Google. Plus, search engines like Yahoo, Live, Ask and others had their special logos. Below is a compilation of logos that I collected throughout the day, the special day. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! Google's Two Logos: Yahoo: AOL: [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | SEM Industry: General | Top News | Yahoo: General

Forthcoming January traffic data will reportedly show that Google Maps has taken the lead from MapQuest as the top mapping site in the US. According to the numbers that I received (I've asked comScore to verify), MapQuest's January monthly unique visitors were 41.5 million and Google's were 42.2 million. This is the first time that Google Maps has overtaken MapQuest. However my source said that time on site/engagement, as reported by comScore, is still greater for MapQuest than for Google Maps. In some respects we have been anticipating this event for a long time, ever since Google remo [...]

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

Google Maps and MapQuest are neck-and-neck in the fight to be the most popular US mapping site. A new report issued today from Hitwise shows the continuing ascent of Google Maps and the simultaneous decline of MapQuest traffic during 2008, with MapQuest pulling away again in the last few weeks: In November, we wrote how MapQuest was coming "out of hibernation" with a concerted effort to hold on to its leads among mapping sites. As Heather Hopkins suggests in the Hitwise post, those new features may be responsible for MapQuest's recent upswing in traffic. But it may be difficult to co [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Stats: Hitwise | Stats: Popularity

Like last year, today, the search engines are commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I attached a collage of logos and themes from the various search engines, including Google, Yahoo, AOL, Live.com, Ask.com and Dogpile. To see them all in greater detail, you can visit their respective home pages today or go to the Search Engine Roundtable, where I posted each logo individually. Like I said in my other post, I suspect these search engines will all have special logos tomorrow, for Inauguration Day, in the US. [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | SEM Industry: General | Yahoo: General

Happy New Years everyone! Below is a collection of logos for the special day from the search industry, reposted from my other search blog, here for everyone to see. On behalf of the Search Engine Land team, we would like to wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009! Google's Logo: Yahoo's Animated Logo: Seems like Yahoo had a calendar that said December 31, but on New Years itself, they have nothing. Update, they had a logo for a few hours, a reader sent it to me, here it is: Live.com's Theme: AOL's Animated Logo: [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | Search Engines: Baidu | SEM Industry: General | Top News | Yahoo: General | Yahoo: Marketing

Happy Holidays from Search Engine Land! Below is a listing of special logos from Google and the search industry for the holidays. I also posted this at the Search Engine Roundtable, with links to the past five years of logos from our industry. Everyone, have a happy holidays and thank you all for reading! Google: Yahoo: Live.com: DogPile: Ask.com: AOL.com: Baidu: FriendFeed: Quintura: BruceClay: Hitwise: Marketing Pilgrim: PPC Heros: Cre8asite Forums: Search Engine Ro [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: General | Search Engines: Baidu | SEM Industry: General | Top News | Yahoo: General

AOL is repositioning or perhaps enhancing Bebo as a kind of dashboard for the internet using the concept of a "social inbox." The Wall Street Journal has coverage of what's at stake for AOL and the challenges facing social media ad revenues. The social inbox idea is about aggregation of content and services (e.g., email) from a range of third parties and partners in one place. The press release describes the strategy: The new aggregation and update features delivered by Bebo go a long way toward solving the main problem facing consumers online, namely, a cluttered social networking experi [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | AOL: Search Marketplace | Channel: Social | Features: Analysis | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

The presidential election reigned supreme in the land of America (Online), as politically charged queries ranged across more than 40 categories in AOL’s annual lists of top Web, mobile and video searches. Celebrity news, captivating headlines and pop culture continued to captivate the online audience; emerging mobile devices bumped activity for social apps like MySpace and Facebook, as well as sharing videos downloaded via apps for the iPhone.

Related Topics: AOL | Channel: Strategy | Stats: Search Behavior

Happy Thanksgiving Search Engine Land readers! Today, in observance of the holiday, we hope to not write here today. So make sure to tune in tomorrow for today's search news and tomorrows. To give you something fun to look at, I'll post what I did at the Search Engine Roundtable, a collection of special Thanksgiving logos from across the search industry. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Google's Logo: Yahoo's flash logo: [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Ask: General | Channel: Consumer | Google: Logos | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: General | SEM Industry: General | Yahoo: General

I recently had the opportunity to interview two senior level executives from Mapquest to find out what the longtime provider of online mapping services is up to. Despite perceptions, MapQuest is actually a more popular mapping destination than Google or Yahoo's map sites, and the company continues to innovate and push out new features and services, with a renewed level of energy in recent months. What follows is my Q&A with Mark Law, Vice President of Product Development and Christian Dwyer, Senior Vice President & General Manager, MapQuest, Inc. Can you share the highlights of your [...]

Related Topics: AOL: MapQuest | Channel: Local | Features: General | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News

Only days after the two companies submitted a modified proposal to try and win the favor of anti-trust regulators, Google has unilaterally decided to discontinue its paid-search agreement with Yahoo, citing "a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners." Yahoo issued a public statement expressing disappointment with Google's decision: Yahoo! continues to believe in the benefits of the agreement and is disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court. Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward w [...]

Related Topics: AOL: General | Channel: Industry | Google & Yahoo Ad Deal | Microsoft & Yahoo Search Deal | Top News