MapQuest Beats Google Maps? Oy…
Techpoint takes a look at Google Maps driving directions and how they compare with MapQuest, and finds out that MapQuest still does a better job at getting you to your destination. See, for all its awful 1990s technology, MapQuest still knows more about directions, just from experience, and all of the AJAX in the world can’t make up for that.
A lot of the difference seems to come from the fact that MapQuest knows the speed limit everywhere in the country, and will send you a little out of the way if it’ll get you there faster due to a 70 MPH speed limit. Google Maps may be slicker, but as hard as it may be to admit this, MapQuest may still be smarter. Can’t AOL find a way to make MapQuest exciting enough that it doesn’t lose its lead to prettier but less effective competitors?
No, they probably can’t. After all, they are AOL.
(via Digg)
Mapquest just needs to be better at updating new roads and communities. Sometimes you try to get directions, have an exact address, and they still can’t find it because it’s too new.
Don Lapre
postmaster@espailleure.com
www.tured.info
Comment by Don Lapre | October 17, 2006
[…] So, is MapQuest better than Google Maps? If you believe Nathan Weinberg, MapQuest seems to know the speed limits across the country and can provide a much more desirable route than Google Maps which seems to be using something like a very unsophisticated version of Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm to figure things out. […]
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