Trend for MapQuest: Down

Overall, this looks like a good update for MapQuest, but these updates are only minor and won't be enough to win back users who have abandoned the service. Our friends at Experian Hitwise were kind enough to provide us with fresh traffic data for Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps and Yahoo Maps. While MapQuest managed to edge out a slight lead in February, Google Maps now owns 45% of the market, while MapQuest's market share has fallen to 35%. Yahoo Maps is now at 6.6% (down from 10.2% in February) and Bing Maps owns 4.3% of the market (up from 3.6%).

For many Internet users, MapQuest is still synonymous with online mapping, but this group is shrinking and Google's relentless pace of releasing updates and new features isn't likely to let up anytime soon.

Today, MapQuest released its first iPhone app, MapQuest 4 Mobile (iTunes link), and after testing it for a while, it quickly became clear that MapQuest's app is a worthy challenger for the iPhone's built-in mapping application, which is based on Google Maps.

Directions and Local Businesses

Just like the MapQuest web site, the iPhone app focuses on finding local businesses and directions. One of the nicest features of the app is that you can save your maps and routes on the MapQuest.com web site and then retrieve them on your phone. Finding local businesses is also very easy thanks to a carousel with different types of businesses that sits at the bottom of the map. You can just click on the gas station icon, for example, and the map will highlight all the local service stations in the area.

With regards to giving directions, MapQuest 4 Mobile offers a number of very useful features, including the ability to add multiple stops. You can also easily email links to maps and directions directly from the phone. Of course, the app is not a full-blown GPS application like the forthcoming Tom Tom for iPhone, but when you hold the phone in landscape mode, the app will bring up a nice oversized display with the next turn that is very easy to read (though you should probably let your passengers handle the app while you're driving anyway).

Plans for iPhone 3.0?

It will be interesting to see how and if MapQuest will make use of the new features in the upcoming iPhone 3.0 release. After all, these will include push notifications and the ability to provide turn-by-turn directions (MapQuest's BlackBerry app already offers this as a subscription service through AT&T). We have already heard from some companies that plan to use push notifications to send out alerts based on a user's location, and apps like MapQuest 4 Mobile and its competitors could definitely benefit from these new features in iPhone 3.0.

According to Hitwise's Heather Hopkings, Google came very close to catching up with MapQuest in December, but somehow, MapQuest managed to gain some ground again in January. Currently, MapQuest holds 39.49% of the market share in the US and Google Maps is at 35.67%.

Update: Hitwise just supplied us with a new graph that includes data for Live Maps and Yahoo Maps.

What is even more interesting, though, is that most of MapQuest's traffic comes from 'brand searches' - that is users who specifically search for 'mapquest.' Eight out of the top ten search terms leading to MapQuest were variations of its brand name and they accounted for 62% of MapQuests' visitors. For Google Maps, only two out of the top ten search terms were branded and they only accounted for 4.2% of Google Maps' traffic.

Old Habits

It is quite amazing how MapQuest manages to hang on to its top position. Google Maps gets over 60% of its traffic from Google itself, yet it seems that using MapQuest, even though it is barely keeping up with the latest technological advancements on the Internet, is still synonymous with online mapping for a majority of Internet users.

In many ways, this means that a service like Microsoft's Live Maps, which is holding on to a very distant third fourth place, is fighting an uphill battle, even though it provides a number of features like its Birds Eye View that even Google Maps doesn't have. For a lot of mainstream users, however, having access to the latest features doesn't necessarily translate into a reason to switch away from an established service.

To get directions, users can now click on "Get Directions" in the newly added blue bar on top of the maps. This redesigned interface for getting directions is actually a bit easier to use, though finding the 'walking' directions is now a tad bit harder as well, as it is hidden in a drop-down menu instead of always being on screen as a link on top of the directions.

Google is obviously putting a lot of resources into its mapping product and given how important location based services are going to become in the future, this seems like a wise long-term investment. Google's competitors are, of course, not sleeping either. Microsoft also constantly updates Live Maps and it has become a worthy competitor to Google Maps - especially with its high-resolution "bird's eye" views.

However, Live Maps suffers from the same branding problem as the rest of Microsoft's Live brand and with Google slowly expanding Street View into more rural areas, the new walking directions, and constantly updated maps, Google might just overtake Mapquest one day as the Internet's most popular mapping destination.

The Google Maps team just announced the addition of a new feature to Google Maps: the ability to contribute to and edit maps through Google Map Maker. Users can now edit and moderate various map features, including roads, lakes, power lines, and bike trails among others.

While Google already allows users to create and share new map layers through 'My Maps', this is the first time it is actively looking for help in creating maps (almost) from the ground up.

Basically, these are all countries that could, as the Google Maps team puts it, "benefit tremendously from local knowledge and expertise that you and other map makers posses, and we're excited to see how you put that to use."

Those maps that are currently available for editing vary greatly in the detail already available for them. Barbados already has a relatively complete set of roads, while Vietnam is almost completely devoid of any details outside of the major cities and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are nothing but gray blobs on the map so far.

The editing functions of Map Maker are extremely easy to use and it is probably only a question of time before more users start using their local knowledge to add to these often bare maps. For most of us, however, the real question is when Google will open up the rest of its maps for editing at this low level - or if this is even desirable.

"The same is true for 'driving directions,' 'map' and "directions' as well as variations on the MapQuest brand name including 'mapquest driving directions' and 'map quest,'" wrote Hitewise's Heather Hopkins. Is Google favoring its own property? Maybe. But I'm honestly surprised MapQuest is still so far out in front.

Google's service has long been the better option. Certainly, AOL has improved the MapQuest service in the past year, and the beta version that they launched in October fixes some of the most glaring pain point still evident in the classic service, such as the lack of multipoint directions and 4 imput boxes for location. But even so, MapQuest consistently lags behind Google in ease of use, design, functionality, and innovation.

Google's is continuously innovating with their Maps service, in the past year adding useful features like Street View (helpful if trying to find a building you've never been to before), MyMaps, which has enabled all sorts of cool maps mashups (like this one mapping the results of the New Hampshire primaries), and draggable destinations when plotting trips.

So why is it that people still use MapQuest when Google is clearly the superior product? The answer is in the brand. MapQuest has been around since the mid-90s and the name was firmly ingrained in our collective psyche during the first dot com boom. As the search volume of "mapquest" vs. "google maps" shows, the name MapQuest is still synonymous with online mapping. Still, Google also has a strong brand (the most powerful in the world last year, according to Millard Brown Optimor), and Google has one thing AOL and MapQuest don't have: control of the world's search market. Expect Google Maps to continue taking market share in online mapping.