ZDNet published a HitWise chart showing market share for the top online mappers. Google Maps (nearly 10 percent) trails Yahoo! maps (41 percent) and MapQuest (33.4 percent). TechDirt thinks Google should be congratulated for gaining so much share so quickly, and I suppose that's true, but I'm a little surprised at the low figure. I was committed to Google Maps from the first week of its release, not only because of its superior maps, but because of its realistic estimates of driving time. (MapQuest is absurdly optimistic.) However, my wife doesn't like Google Maps because it doesn't save our address, and that's a good point. For all of Google's recent personalization efforts, that is a glaring and easily corrected omission.
1. Google Maps has really poor data when compared to MapQuest in my experience. They're probably both comprable for big cities, but when you live in a community where residents are measured in the hundreds, like me in Hazelton, B.C., then MapQuest's huge advantage here makes all the difference - it has roads named that Google doesn't even know about!
Posted at 4:42AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Josh Prowse