Friday, May 8. 2009

Online Mapping Slowing Canada/US Traffic

Why is the Lewiston-Queenston bridge so busy and slow and nearby ones have no waiting and no lines? NITTEC Executive Director Tom George thinks it has to do with online mapping.

We call that the 'Google Phenomenon' because they will take that map from Mapquest or Google and follow it it doesn't matter how long they have to sit when directly adjacent to them is another facility where they can drive directly across the border. People go ahead and follow that right into that bridge even though there's other bridges with 0 or 30 minutes or less.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, MapQuest at 07:21 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, April 15. 2009

Update: Google Maps (Finally) Tops Mapquest

Update: Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land notes that Hitwise looks further at the data and notes that while Google Maps has the edge in traffic, MapQuest still has the edge in engagement. That is, folks stay longer at MapQuest (almost 11 minutes to 7.5 at Google Maps). Could it be folks find their answers more directly at Google Maps? Or are more familiar with it and thus more efficient? I for one am slower using MapQuest since I use it far less.

--- original post 4/14/09 ----------
Blumenthals has the stats and graph from Hitwise. Over the weekend Google Maps hit 39.38% of the travel maps category and MapQuest took just 39.14%. Whew, now that that's settled, back to work...

via @NAVTEQ via Twitter

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, MapQuest, Geospatial Business at 10:01 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

Thursday, February 19. 2009

Update: MapQuest Grows Lead Over Google Maps

Now word that Google Maps has overtaken Mapquest in the latest numbers. Based on January unique visits: Google Maps had 42.2 million to MapQuest’s 41.5 million.

- Paid Content

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, MapQuest at 08:31 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) |

Tuesday, December 23. 2008

Latest Web Stats: Google Maps Gaining on MapQuest

"In November, the most recent month for data, MapQuest's unique-visitor count fell 9% from November 2007 to 41.5 million, while Google Maps' rose 29% to 38.8 million, market tracker comScore says."

Analysts note that Google's position as top search engine drives much of Google Maps success. Christian Dwyer, MapQuest's general manager, details two instances what Investor's Business Daily calls "dirty pool" which seem to promote Google Maps and move down MapQuest.

(1) In a Google search the top search result gets a lot of space, pushing all other search results lower on the page (often that result is Google's).

(2) In paid links Google seems to always come out above MapQuest.

The article confirms these observations. The good news? No one seems to think there's anything wrong with MapQuest, though the sentiment "too little, too late" comes through.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, MapQuest at 06:00 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) |

Friday, December 12. 2008

Two New Widgets for MapQuest: Local Tweets and CareerBuilder Jobs

You can now see the latest local Twitter posts and store up to five searches for job in the areas you visit on the map in MapQuest Local. It's part of MapQuest's effort to be a destination and lose marketshare to Google per one analysis.

- Details on MapQuest Blog
- Analysis on LA Times Blog

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in MapQuest at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Wednesday, November 26. 2008

MapQuest Positions itself Against Google Maps

"Google Maps may be gaining ground in terms of unique visitors but our user engagement and value proposition is very different than Google Maps. Visitors to MapQuest are far more engaged as we are actually a destination website."

That's Mark Law, Vice President of Product Development at Mapquest in an interview at Search Engine Land. While he and and Christian Dwyer, Senior Vice President & General Manager, do their best to draw the lines between the offerings, I think users are seeing things in a bit more blurred way.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in Google, MapQuest at 07:10 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |