MapQuest Goes Local; Wants Your Content

That’s the gist of two posts, 1 2 at the MapQuest blog today.

Here’s your local page (the city is based on past visits or recent searches or you can change it…) - note, as Wired points out, the content is not well integrated with the map. Also, the homepage sure has a feel of “kitchen sink” - so it’s nice it’s editable.

As for “bring us your content” - my first questions - what and how are you going to use it? How will it be geocoded? are not answered. This form suggests its early going. Instead the post focusses on putting your content on the site with the 12th largest audience in the US and driving traffic to your site.

I guess this is another “user generated content” play. The difference? Tap into existing content players (small to large) rather than tapping well-known social networks. Let’s see how it works!

NAVTEQ Going Forward

From the NAVTEQ Connections conference in San Francisco…

I heard Jeff Mize, a NAVTEQ executive VP comment on a vision I hadn’t heard articulated before…that is that NAVTEQ is viewing themselves as much more than just a provider of navigable (read: highest quality) street centerline data and a few dynamic data sets like traffic or fuel prices. Mize indicated that much more in the way of POIs are coming such as bus schedules, flight status, and pedestrian pathways. NAVTEQ wants to provide as much information for "off-board" navigation as possible and do it on any the map base. Their new location content managment system is intended to provide POI data regardless of the underlying navigation database.

Amazon.com Maps Political Books: Red Books, Blue Books

New store features interactive “Red” and “Blue” map of the United States based on recent political books sales data and unique content to help customers get ready for the presidential election season

Check it out here. [Link fixed!]

- press release

NGA LiDAR to the Rescue in Iowa

So, how is all that homeland security data for the 133 cities being used? Here’s one story:


In 2005, “after Des Moines hosted the National Governors Association’s meeting, a disk with some of the data was given to government officials in Iowa. It contained information about buildings, trees, forests and topography.” After the event? I thought perhaps they’d want the data in hand before to prep for any issues?

That data ended up in the hands of David Croll, GIS coordinator for the city of Johnston. When flooding threatened the city this summer and intern suggested using the LiDAR data to determine the most risky areas. It worked:

“Instead of taking sandbags to 15 houses, we took them to one,” he said. “It was incredibly accurate” in predicting where flooding would occur. He has since used the information for a tree inventory in the city.

- Des Moines Register

Forbes: Google to lead in Mobile GPS

“Despite these formidable players, it’s scrappy Google that may make the biggest splash in mobile GPS.” The article “Your Phone, Your GPS” wraps up the state of things with some insight into Nokia plans, among other things.