A eulogy for Mapquest
Once the dominant mapping site, the decline of Mapquest is a story of disruptive competition and corporate complacency.
Topic: Yahoo Maps
SearchCap: Goodbye Yahoo Maps, Google Search Shows iOS Apps & Touch To Search
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Says It May Unverify Inactive Local Business Listings Company will first try to contact businesses that haven’t logged in within six months, then may unverify if there’s no response. Mobilegeddon […]
Yahoo Maps Hits A Dead End, Shutting Down End Of This Month
After eight years, Yahoo will shut down Yahoo Maps by the end of this month.
Nokia Makes HERE Maps Available To All Android Users
Nokia’s HERE Maps app, which had previously just been available for Samsung Galaxy Android phones is now available to all Android users. However it’s not in Google Play; users have to download it directly from the HERE site. In order to install the HERE app, you’ll need to go into settings –>security and enable installation of apps from […]
Amazon Fire Phone: Bing For Search, Nokia For Maps
The emerging consensus from the early “hands on” or “first look” reviews is that the Amazon Fire Phone has some novel and interesting features but that it doesn’t measure up, overall, to the iPhone or “true Android” devices. I’ve argued that Amazon missed the boat with its high-end pricing. Interestingly, there has been almost no […]
Yahoo Rolling Out Indoor Maps (via Nokia)
Yahoo has started to integrate indoor maps into its newly upgraded mapping product. Even though Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer didn’t want to go head to head with Google in “local” (read: maps), Yahoo has been improving its mapping and local search user experiences of late. The inclusion of venue maps comes courtesy of Nokia’s Here […]
Surprise: Yahoo Maps Gets A Facelift, New Features
Shortly after she became Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer declared (disappointingly) that she wasn’t going to invest in Local. It turns out that what she meant was she wasn’t going to go head-to-head with Google in Maps. Her predecessor Carol Bartz had outsourced maps (to Nokia), and she wasn’t prepared to make a bunch of new […]
Did Google Maps Lose England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland?
The United Kingdom (to use its short name) is a complicated country, actually made up of four countries across two islands. If you were looking to understand it better, forget Google Maps. That’s because the service has lost the constituent countries of England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland — as well as the island of […]
Trying To Get There From Here: Nokia And Mapquest Launch New Maps Products
Globally there are arguably four main digital mapping competitors: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Nokia. Google is the clear leader. However Nokia is making a renewed bid to challenge Google’s mapping supremacy with a rebranded platform “Here,” new APIs, a Google Street View-like offering, augmented reality and new apps for third party smartphone operating systems. Apple […]
Did Motorola Use A False Address To Slam Apple Maps?
Right as all the negative Apple Maps stories were coming out, Google’s Motorola division created an ad and Twitter campaign to argue that, unlike Apple Maps, Google Maps won’t get you lost. The campaign #iLost, also promoted on Google+, used a specific address as an example of one that Apple wouldn’t get right: 315 E 15th […]
Microsoft Integrates More Nokia “Infrastructure” (Traffic, Geocoding) Into Bing Maps
Slowly Bing is handing over more of its mapping “back end” functions to Nokia, as part of the deal that brought the two together for the Lumia-Windows Phone partnership. Yesterday Microsoft announced that in 24 countries, including the US and UK, Nokia (Navteq) will be delivering traffic data to Bing Maps. The company also said […]
Microsoft And Nokia Unify Maps On PC, Mobile
Microsoft and Nokia announced the fruit of their recent mapping collaboration today. Each company has a blog post describing what’s changed and improved (Bing, Nokia). The effort comes out of the companies’ strategic partnership in mobile. As part of that arrangement Microsoft is relying heavily on the Nokia-Navteq mapping and data infrastructure. Nokia for its […]
Yandex Joins Bing, Yahoo In Using Nokia-Navteq Map Data
Russian search giant Yandex announced that it will be licensing data from Nokia-owned Navteq to offer better and more comprehensive maps coverage around the world: Yandex . . . has purchased a license for digital maps supplied by the leading global location content provider, NAVTEQ. These digital maps will be used in the development of […]
Nokia Now “Powering” Bing Maps
In May of last year I had a conversation with someone who told me that Nokia Maps (Navteq) would effectively replace the infrastructure behind Bing Maps. I was surprised to say the least and wrote about it in a story entitled Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia? The impression I got is that […]
Powered By Nokia, The New Yahoo Maps Goes Live
Former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be remembered mainly as a cost cutter who outsourced numerous functions to third parties. A partial list of those includes outsourcing Search to Microsoft, Shopping to PriceGrabber, Real Estate to Zillow and Maps to Nokia/Navteq. And now, the new Nokia-powered Yahoo Maps (NokiHoo) have just gone live in the […]
Bing Maps To Be Powered (Replaced) By Nokia?
I had a chance lunch with a person with close connections to Nokia about a week ago. Naturally we began talking about the outlook for the Microsoft-Nokia Windows Phone deal. He was hopeful but mindful of the risks for both companies. Our conversation eventually turned to a discussion of Nokia’s mapping division Navteq and what […]
Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% Of The Time
For the past year or so, there’s been a rising meme that Google is altering its search results in ways to favor itself over competitors. Now a new study is out showing the opposite. Google is far more likely not to show its own products in the first spot of its search results. The survey […]
Google And Yelp Express “Complicated” Relationship In Conference Interview
There’s nothing that jaded and weary conference goers love more than to see some “red meat” conflict between panelists during a session. And that’s what TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld repeatedly tried to elicit in an on-stage interview of Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Google’s John Hanke during the Social Currency CrunchUp event yesterday in Palo Alto […]
The Yahoo-Nokia Deal: Some Details & Perspective
Yahoo and Nokia made their anticipated partnership announcement this morning in New York. The public elements of the deal include the following: Nokia will be the exclusive, global provider of Yahoo!’s maps and navigation services, integrating Ovi Maps across Yahoo! properties, branded as “powered by Ovi.” Yahoo! will become the exclusive, global provider of Nokia’s […]
Companies Ask Courts, Regulators To Restrain Google To Compensate For Own Competitive Failures
In a kind of parallel but interesting variation on the complaints filed in Europe against Google, now being investigated by the European Commission in a preliminary anti-trust inquiry, one of the European complainants Foundem has filed a brief with the US FCC concerning net neutrality. The complaints in Europe, broadly speaking, argue that Google has […]
Microhoo Changes Local Search Landscape For Small Biz
Finally, after a lengthy gestation period, Microhoo is official! In late July, Microsoft and Yahoo inked a 10-year deal that — if approved — combines the companies’ forces in an internet search alliance to make a concentrated run at Google, recognized by many as the key player in local search. The deal, which seems to […]
What Micro-Hoo Might Mean For Local Search
As the dust begins to settle on the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, we’re finding that this week’s announcement raised as many questions as it answered. The companies told Danny and Greg that the agreement covers “web, image, and video search.” But what about the many search verticals that Yahoo and Microsoft are involved in? These are […]
Yahoo Improves EU Mapping, Does It Still See Maps As Strategic?
These days it’s hard to remember that at one time Yahoo was the pioneer in dynamic mapping. It introduced enhanced local search features and capabilities into the map before Google, Microsoft and MapQuest. At a certain point, however, Yahoo opted out of the map feature wars that erupted between Google and Microsoft (StreetView, 3D, aerial, […]
Microsoft IE8 Browser Seeks To ‘Accelerate’ Searching, Yahoo Adds ‘Visual Shortcuts’ To Search Box
Microsoft’s new browser IE 8 is now in general release. There are loads of features, which I won’t go into at length. Danny did a preliminary overview of the search and ad-related features of IE8 already, which I’m sure he’ll revisit at some point. And the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg offers a generally favorable […]
ComScore To Report Google Maps Now Number 1
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 […]
October 2008: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories
Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from October 2008:
Google Maps: #1 In Features, Market Share Rising
As Google Maps continues to roll out new features that competing map services don’t have, web users are rewarding it with big gains in traffic. A recent analyst report says Google is the number one maps site in terms of features and usability, and new Hitwise.com traffic data just shared this week with Search Engine […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 1, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Yahoo Maps Now With Better Search Integration & New Features
Yahoo announced that they have added some features to Yahoo Maps. The main improvements include better local search integration, usability enhancements, and printable view changes. Here is the full list of features:
Google Maps To Add Walking Directions?
Google Operating System reports that Google Maps is testing out walking directions in some locations. I was personally not able to replicate the walking directions, but Ionut has a screen capture as proof. We all know Ask.com had walking directions, but when Ask.com killed off their maps product, they also killed off the walking directions. […]
Search In Pictures: I Hate Kate At Yahoo, Google Taipei Office, & Google Logo In Circles & Lines
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
Yahoo Search Circle Allows Users To Easily Expand & Narrow Results On Map
Yahoo just announced that it has added a nifty tool to Local (called “search circle”) that allows uses to alter the geographic scope of results by expanding or narrowing a circle on the map. The circle can also be dragged to a particular area easily, allowing for more efficient neighborhood search (screenshots below and on […]
Yahoo Adds Much More Imagery To Maps
Yahoo has largely opted out of the mapping arms race between Microsoft and Google that has seen both invest millions in their mapping platforms. While it was the early pioneer of dynamic mapping and use of maps as a local search tool, the company decided to focus on more “practical” tools and functionality rather than […]
Four Year Effort Culiminates In “ClearFlow” Traffic On Microsoft Live Search Maps
Today in 72 US cities, Microsoft is introducing what it calls “ClearFlow” on Live Search Maps. It’s an improved traffic and routing service that relies on machine learning and predictive modeling to offer better traffic and routing information to consumers across the US. Microsoft employee and artificial intelligence expert Eric Horvitz initiated the project in […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 11, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Google Maps Gaining On Market Leader Mapquest
Mapquest arguably “owns” the mapping brand online. It has been the dominant mapping site for years by a wide margin. But that dominance may now be slipping under pressure from Google. Hitwise reports that “traffic to Mapquest has remained flat year on year and is down 20% in the past 6 months. Google Maps traffic […]
Yahoo’s Yang Outlines Vision For An Integrated, Open Yahoo 2.0
Yahoo’s Jerry Yang took the stage at CES yesterday to offer a vision for the company’s future as a more integrated, open platform and “starting point” for consumers on the internet. Much of the news surrounding Yahoo yesterday was about the new mobile application Go 3.0 and related widget platform for third-party developers and advertisers. […]
SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 18, 2007
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
Yahoo Maps Adds Drag And Drop Routing
Yahoo Maps added drag and drop customizable routing, among several other improvements to the site. There’s more discussion and explanation on the Yahoo Local & Maps blog. Google has a similar feature. Below are some screenshots of the new capability on Yahoo. Additional feature upgrades on Yahoo Maps include photos and reviews in Ajax pop-ups […]
Yahoo Adds Integrated Shortcuts For WordPress Blogs
The Yahoo Search Blog announced a new WordPress plugin that automatically creates Yahoo Shortcuts for the words you write in a blog post. If you mention a stock ticker, that word on your blog will typically contain a mouse-over effect that will display a Yahoo Finance chart. Or if you have an address, they might […]