MapQuest (stylized as mapquest) is an American free online web mapping service. It was launched in 1996 as the first commercial web mapping service.[1] MapQuest vies for market share with competitors such as Google Maps and Here.[2]
The former MapQuest logo was phased out as part of a website redesign unveiled on July 14, 2010.
MapQuest's origins date to 1967 with the founding of Cartographic Services, a division of R.R. Donnelley & Sons in Chicago, which moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1969. In the mid-1980s, R.R. Donnelley & Sons began generating maps and routes for customers, with cooperation by Barry Glick, a University at Buffalo Ph.D.[3] In 1994, it was spun off as GeoSystems Global Corporation. Much of the code was adapted for use on the Internet to create the MapQuest web service in 1996. MapQuest's original services were mapping (referred to as "Interactive Atlas") and driving directions (called "TripQuest").[4]
Sensing the emerging demand for spatial applications on the Internet, and with crippling network latency in Lancaster, the executive team of Barry Glick and Perry Evans moved MapQuest to the up-and-coming LoDo area of Denver, Colorado.
The initial Denver team consisted of Evans, Simon Greenman, Chris Fanjoy and Harry Grout. To make MapQuest a serious contender in the online spatial application market, a robust set of geographical tools was developed under Greenman's direction. Grout, who had spent time at Rand McNally, Etak and Navigation Technologies Corporation building digital map data, was tasked with acquiring data and licensing arrangements. The initial team experienced rapid growth in the Denver office, and in a short time MapQuest was becoming a well-known brand.
On 25 February 1999, MapQuest went public, trading on Nasdaq.[5] In December 1999, America Online (AOL) announced it would acquire MapQuest for $1.1 billion. The deal closed in 2000.[1] Chief Operating Officer / Chief Financial Officer Jim Thomas managed these transactions.[6]
For a period, MapQuest included satellite images through a licensing deal with GlobeXplorer, but later removed them because of the unorthodox business mechanics[clarification needed] of the arrangement brokered by AOL. In September 2006, the website once again began serving satellite imagery in a new beta program.
In 2004, MapQuest, uLocate, Research in Motion and Nextel launched MapQuest Find Me, a buddy-finder service that worked on GPS-enabled mobile phones. MapQuest Find Me let users automatically find their location, access maps and directions and locate nearby points of interest, including airports, hotels, restaurants, banks and ATMs. Users also had the ability to set up alerts to be notified when network members arrive at or depart from a designated area. In 2005 the service became available on Sprint, and in 2006, Boost Mobile.
In July 2006, MapQuest created a beta version of a new feature with which users could build customized routes by adding additional stops, reordering stops along the way and avoiding any undesired turns or roads. Users could also write out the starting address.[7]
In April 2007, MapQuest announced a partnership with General Motors' OnStar to allow OnStar subscribers to plan their driving routes on MapQuest.com and send their destination to OnStar's turn-by-turn navigation service. The OnStar Web Destination Entry pilot program began in the summer of 2007 with a select group of OnStar subscribers.[8]
Around 2008, the general public made a significant shift away from MapQuest to the much younger Google Maps service.[9]
In July 2010, MapQuest announced[10][11] plans to become the first major mapping site to embrace open-source mapping data, launching a new site[12] separate from its main site, entirely using data from the OpenStreetMap project.[13] On July 14, 2010, MapQuest launched a simplified user interface and made the site more compact. MapQuest also introduced "My Maps" personalization, which enables the user to personalize the interface.
In July 2012, Brian McMahon became the CEO and GM of MapQuest.
In May 2015, with the purchase of AOL by Verizon Communications, MapQuest came under the ownership of Verizon.[14]
On 11 July 2016, MapQuest discontinued its open tile API,[15][16] and users such as GNOME Maps were switched to a temporarily free tier of the Mapbox tileserver,[17] while considering alternatives.[18]
In 2019, Verizon Media sold Mapquest to System1.[19]
Services and programs
Currently, MapQuest uses some of TomTom's services for its mapping system.
MapQuest provides some extent of street-level detail or driving directions for a variety of countries. Users can check if their country is available using a dropdown menu on the MapQuest home page.
The company offers a free mobile app for Android and iOS that features POI search, voice-guided navigation, real-time traffic and other features. MapQuest also offers a mobile-friendly website.
MapQuest has several travel products and also includes a feature to let users compare nearby gas prices, similar to the service offered by GasBuddy. However, this feature is only available in the United States.
MapQuest's POI data helps the service differentiate itself from other wayfinding software by guiding users directly to the entrances of businesses and destinations, rather than to general street addresses.
Publishing
In October 2006, MapQuest sold its publishing division to concentrate on its online and mobile services.[20]
AOL is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo! Inc.
AIM was an instant messaging and presence computer program created by AOL, which used the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon is the second-largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 143.3 million subscribers at the end of Q2 2023.
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets, real-time traffic conditions, and route planning for traveling by foot, car, bike, air and public transportation. As of 2020, Google Maps was being used by over one billion people every month around the world.
A GIS software program is a computer program to support the use of a geographic information system, providing the ability to create, store, manage, query, analyze, and visualize geographic data, that is, data representing phenomena for which location is important. The GIS software industry encompasses a broad range of commercial and open-source products that provide some or all of these capabilities within various information technology architectures.
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed geodata sources. OpenStreetMap is freely licensed under the Open Database License and as a result commonly used to make electronic maps, inform turn-by-turn navigation, assist in humanitarian aid and data visualisation. OpenStreetMap uses its own topology to store geographical features which can then be exported into other GIS file formats. The OpenStreetMap website itself is an online map, geodata search engine and editor.
Web mapping or an online mapping is the process of using, creating, and distributing maps on the World Wide Web, usually through the use of Web geographic information systems. A web map or an online map is both served and consumed, thus, web mapping is more than just web cartography, it is a service where consumers may choose what the map will show.
Verizon Communications Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate. The company is incorporated in Delaware, and headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Verizon's capital stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Here Technologies is a Dutch multinational group specialized in mapping technologies, location data and related automotive services to individuals and companies. It is majority-owned by a consortium of German automotive companies and American semiconductor company Intel whilst other companies also own minority stakes. Its roots date back to U.S.-based Navteq in 1985, which was acquired by Finland-based Nokia in 2007. Here is currently based in The Netherlands.
AutoNavi Software Co., Ltd. (simplified Chinese: 高德软件有限公司; traditional Chinese: 高德軟件有限公司; pinyin: Gāodé Ruǎnjiàn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī)) is a Chinese web mapping, navigation and location-based services provider, founded in 2001. One of its subsidiary companies, Beijing Mapabc Co. Ltd. (www.mapabc.com), is a map website in China. AutoNavi was acquired by Alibaba Group in 2014. It offers its map services at Amap.com and as the Amap mobile app. It is known as Gaode in Chinese.
Telenav, Inc. is a wireless location-based services corporation that provides services including Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation, local search, automotive navigation solutions, mobile advertising, enterprise mobility and workflow automation. The company’s headquarters are located in Santa Clara, California in the United States with additional offices in the U.S., Germany, Japan, Romania, China, and Brazil.
Leaflet is an open source JavaScript library used to build web mapping applications. First released in 2011, it supports most mobile and desktop platforms, supporting HTML5 and CSS3. Among its users are FourSquare, Pinterest and Flickr.
Mapbox is an American provider of custom online maps for websites and applications such as Foursquare, Lonely Planet, the Financial Times, The Weather Channel, Instacart Inc. and Snapchat. Since 2010, it has rapidly expanded the niche of custom maps, as a response to the limited choice offered by map providers such as Google Maps.
A tiled web map,slippy map or tile map is a map displayed in a web browser by seamlessly joining dozens of individually requested image or vector data files. It is the most popular way to display and navigate maps, replacing other methods such as Web Map Service (WMS) which typically display a single large image, with arrow buttons to navigate to nearby areas. Google Maps was one of the first major mapping sites to use this technique. The first tiled web maps used raster tiles, before the emergence of vector tiles.
Vector tiles, tiled vectors or vectiles are packets of geographic data, packaged into pre-defined roughly-square shaped "tiles" for transfer over the web. This is an emerging method for delivering styled web maps, combining certain benefits of pre-rendered raster map tiles with vector map data. As with the widely used raster tiled web maps, map data is requested by a client as a set of "tiles" corresponding to square areas of land of a pre-defined size and location. Unlike raster tiled web maps, however, the server returns vector map data, which has been clipped to the boundaries of each tile, instead of a pre-rendered map image.
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Stamen is a data visualization design studio based in San Francisco, California. Its clients include National Geographic, Facebook and The Dalai Lama.
go90 was an American Internet television service and mobile app owned and operated by Verizon Communications. The service was positioned as a mobile-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards millennials, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States.
iD is a free software online editor for OpenStreetMap (OSM) geodata created in JavaScript and released in 2013. It is the most popular and the default editor on the main OSM page. iD's features include choosing custom aerial imagery and native support for Mapillary photos. Specialized forks of iD include RapiD, developed by Facebook as an import tool for reviewing and adding roads detected by proprietary Facebook algorithms.
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on media and online business. It is the second and current incarnation of the company, after Verizon Communications acquired the core assets of its predecessor and merged them with AOL in 2017. The resulting subsidiary entity was briefly called Oath Inc. In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $4.6 billion, roughly half; the company would be renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019.
References
1 2 Boulton, Jim (28 June 2016). "Plotting the past". Digital Archaeology. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
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