 | |
Screenshot  Screenshot of MapQuest in use on a web browser. | |
Type of site | Web mapping |
|---|---|
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Parent | AOL (2000–2015) Verizon Media (2016–2019) System1 (2019–present) |
| URL | www |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | February 6, 1996 |
| Current status | Active |
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's competitors include Apple Maps, Here, and Google Maps. [2] [3]
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. [4] 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"). [5]
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. [6] 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. [7]
For a period (until 2004), [8] 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 (as a result of their merger with Nextel), and on Boost Mobile in 2006.
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. [9]
In October 2006, MapQuest sold its publishing division to concentrate on its online and mobile services. [10]
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. [11]
Around 2008, the general public made a significant shift away from MapQuest to the much younger Google Maps service. [12] [13]
In July 2010, MapQuest announced [14] [15] plans to become the first major mapping site to embrace open-source mapping data, launching a new site [16] separate from its main site, entirely using data from the OpenStreetMap project. [17] 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. [18]
On 11 July 2016, MapQuest discontinued its open tile API, [19] [20] and users such as GNOME Maps were switched to a temporarily free tier of the Mapbox tileserver, [21] while considering alternatives. [22]
From 2014, MapQuest uses some of TomTom's services for its mapping system. [25]
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.
AOL is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc.
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 has 114.2 million subscribers as of September 30, 2024. It currently has the largest network in the United States with their LTE network covering 70% of the United States.
Tele Atlas is a Netherlands-based company founded in 1984 which delivers digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-based services, including personal and in-car navigation systems, and provides data used in a wide range of mobile and Internet map applications. Since 30 July 2008, the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of automotive navigation system manufacturer TomTom.
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 is a website that uses an open geographic database which is updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial photo imagery or satellite 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.
Bing Maps is a web mapping service provided as a part of Microsoft's Bing suite of search engines and powered by the Bing Maps Platform framework which also support Bing Maps for Enterprise APIs and Azure Maps APIs. Since 2020, the map data is provided by TomTom, OpenStreetMap and others.
TomTom N.V. is a Dutch multinational developer and creator of location technology and consumer electronics. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in Amsterdam, TomTom released its first generation of satellite navigation devices to market in 2004. As of 2019 the company has over 4,500 employees worldwide and operations in 29 countries throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas.
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 telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 114.2 million subscribers as of September 30, 2024.
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.
Apple Maps is a web mapping service developed by Apple Inc. As the default map system of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS, it provides directions and estimated times of arrival for driving, walking, cycling, and public transportation navigation. A "Flyover" mode shows certain urban centers and other places of interest in a 3D landscape composed of models of buildings and structures.
Leaflet is a JavaScript library used to build web mapping applications. It allows developers without a GIS background to display tiled web maps hosted on a public server, with optional tiled overlays. It can load feature data from GeoJSON files, style it and create interactive layers, such as markers with popups when clicked.
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, and Strava. 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.
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.
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 was renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019.
| Organisations |  | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Software |
| ||||||
| Derivations | |||||||
