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Surprises

by Mike Masnick

Mon, Aug 22nd 2005 1:26am





How Quickly Google Maps Staked Its Claim In The Online Mapping Space

from the didn't-take-long-at-all dept

We were just talking about how the new interesting online mapping offerings seemed to come out of nowhere, and much of the credit for that has to go to Google -- who breathed new life into the space, since it launched Google Maps in early February of this year. Considering that Yahoo Maps and (AOL's) Mapquest had absolutely dominated the space for years, it's impressive in that in only six months, Google has managed to take 10% of the market. Yahoo Maps and Mapquest are still in the lead, but it certainly didn't take long at all for Google to carve out its own piece of the mapping pie.

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  1.  
    identicon
    Chris, Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 4:51am

    No Subject Given

    I'm surprised it is only a 10% stake. I like the click and drag to scroll the map feature. MS Streets and Trips 2004 I have to move the mouse to the edge of the map to scroll.

     

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  2.  
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    Anonymous Coward, Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 8:01am

    Re: No Subject Given

    You can reproduce the same behavior in Streets & Trips -- just select the hand tool.

     

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  3.  
    identicon
    justin, Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 8:07am

    much better

    google gains so much market space b/c it is better than the rest. i have yet to be lead wrong with google maps, unlike mapquest which sends me all over the place. with my job i have to travel alot to remote locations, getting lost on backroads is not fun. go google go!

     

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  4.  
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    D, Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 8:25am

    Re: No Subject Given

    I thought it would be something like 25%

     

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  5.  
    icon
    Mike (profile), Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 9:48am

    Re: No Subject Given

    I don't think 10% is that surprising. I'm sure within the techie/geek community it's *MUCH* higher, but you have to remember that the average net user has no idea that Google launched a maps product. That's why I thought the 10% was so impressive in such a short period of time. Over time it will spread to others, but for a produce that really has had no advertising and just spread by word of mouth by geeks, 10% in 6 months is *very* impressive.

     

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  6.  
    identicon
    John T., Aug 22nd, 2005 @ 11:28am

    Re: much better

    Yahoo, Mapquest and Google all use NAVTEQ data for their maps in major cities, but I read somewhere that only Yahoo and Google would "pony up" for the better data for the non-big city data (Mapquest uses some European company called Tele Atlas for rural areas). Even if the data is the same, your routes and address lookups all depend on the software on top of the databases. While there isn't as much work that goes into the software, Google clearly does this better.

     

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