Continuing on its "too little, too late" strategy, MapQuest has tinkered with its home page. The team has updated the maps which now appear on the front page! Further the interface looks more, well, Google Maps-like with Traffic and Gas Buddy in buttons top right. Forms have been updated so you can toggle between a "key in" and "paste in" form. (Not sure why there can't be one for both...)

Bottom line: if you love MapQuest, these enhancements will be nice, if you use something else, these enhancements don't matter at all. For now the enhancements are on the "beta" site, but you can toggle back to the old one for comparison. Full details on the MapQuest blog.

Other reviews: Webware, Mashable

MapQuest has partnered with Citysearch to add its content (reviews, menus, photos) to results.

- MapQuest Blog
- via Search Engine Watch

Apparently at some point NavQuest gave up and changed its name to ClicktoBoat.com. If nothing else, it confirms the company serves the boating community.

- press release

---- original post 4/8/08 ----

AOL is suing the Boca Raton-based NavQuest that offer boaters tools to plot a course. Says AOL: the site is "confusingly similar" in name and function. NavQuest launched in Feb 2007. Per the Palm Beach Post, here's what it offers:

Boaters enter their starting and ending points. The marine navigation tool calculates trip time, distance and fuel consumption, and downloads the needed charts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The site also offers weather, tide and marina information.

NavQuest's founder Ken Litvack tried to trademark NavQuest in 2006; AOL opposed the application. But clearly, AOL is no longer waiting around for the trademark folks to finish the processing.

Last week Ask.com moved off its longtime mapping platform to Microsoft's Virtual Earth. What are the practical choices these days for those who want mapping as part of their portals? Has customization and a unique look and feel been overshadowed by a few strong hosted solutions to which everyone will eventually migrate? Our editors sort out the options and trends and end up using the "c" word - commodity.

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This statement was included in a news story about an open house at an Alabama glass blowing establishment. It followed detailed driving instructions.

Orbix assistants do not recommend visitors try to use MapQuest, an Internet mapping service, because it takes drivers on a longer, more circuitous route.

PC World has a reasonably useful article on How to Buy a GPS. I give the author much credit for noting at the outset that if you don't go anywhere, you should go cheap, but if you travel to many different places regularly (salesperson) go big.

Which brings me to the quote - it relates to the timeliness of map updates for different units.

If you expect to use your GPS device primarily to find convenient java shops during occasional travels--or retail outlets that you've never visited before--working with less-than-up-to-the-minute mapping data is probably okay. And you can always turn to MapQuest for more-recent information.

No disrespect to MapQuest; I just find it amusing that the author assumes MapQuest (or likely any online site) will necessarily have more up-to-date information.