As we reviewed user feedback to our previous release on MapQuest.com, we noticed that a few users didn't quite know how to use the 2 box forms we blogged about previously (see Overhauling Business Search: The First Step). Because we returned unexpected results for those users, we brought back our standard 5 box form last night. All of the other search enhancements remain. If you are interested in continuing to use the 2 box forms, you can switch to them at any time by selecting 'Use Copy and Paste Forms':
Ever find yourself lost and needing directions in a jiffy? Grab your iPhoneTM and download MapQuest Navigator from the iTunes store for just $.99.
This simple and intuitive app is a no-brainer download. For less than $1 for the first 30 days, you'll receive turn-by-turn voice-guided directions to restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, bars and, of course, residential addresses as well. At the end of 30 days you do not have to renew your subscription, but, if you choose to do so, you can renew your subscription for 30 days at $3.99, 90 days at $9.99 or a year at just $29.99. Not bad considering the price of a GPS!
Downloading MapQuest Navigator is extremely easy and downloads almost instantaneously, unlike other apps that require you to download a gigabyte of data or create a user account.
We're constantly upgrading the app, too. A recent upgrade improved the local search user experience. You can now enter a business name, followed by the keyword 'near' and the location all in one line, making it easier and quicker to get to your destination (e.g., Tacos near Manhattan NY).
Need another reason to check out the app? MapQuest Navigator was recently voted as one of 100 Greatest iPhone Apps for 2009 by Mac|Life subscribers.
If you've searched for a business or landmark on MapQuest.com today, you may have noticed it's a little different. Just this morning we released a new geosearch engine to power our location search, built on top of the open source Apache Lucene project. In other words, we now have the flexibility to expand our search capabilities, helping us create a better experience for our users.
The first thing you might notice is the change on the homepage. We no longer default to a 5 box form, but instead provide 2 boxes for input. This allows you to easily copy and paste in an address.
One of the new capabilities allows us to give you, the user, a short list of results based on what we think most closely matches what you are searching for. You might see a search result appear like this:
If we don't provide you with the location you are looking for, click on the 'Show More Results' link to get a full list.
A few weeks ago, we also added a feedback link to the bottom of the search results. It looks like this:
Please click on this link whenever you search for a business and can't find it; we use this information to refine our search algorithms, making it easier for everyone to find what they really want, quickly.
And don't forget, if you ever need the phone number for your family doctor, you can quickly do a search for it by inputting 'Dr Smith' in 'Your Town, Your State' to find their information.
While we work furiously to improve your search experience on MapQuest.com, we welcome any feedback or discussion you can provide. Visit our brand new forums to join other MapQuest users interested in helping us improve our site.
Before the Academy Awards® or the Grammy's® there is another top award ceremony to be held. It's the Adrian Awards and MapQuest's partner, Hampton Hotels, will be there to celebrate! Hampton Hotels has won the "Silver Award" for Web Ad Series from the Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) for their sponsorship of the MapQuest Business Locator!
Hampton Hotels will be recognized for their advertising excellence award for MapQuest Business Locator at the 53rd annual Adrian Awards Competition, one of the largest and most prestigious travel marketing competitions globally. You can check out all of the winning entries after the Adrian Awards Gala on Feb. 1, 2010 at www.adrianawards.com.
The MapQuest Business Locator is a one-of-a-kind, on-map search tool that allows you to find Hampton Hotels as well as other businesses and services such as Restaurants, Bars, Coffee Shops and many more!
Hampton Hotels also participated as a MapQuest Business Locator beta partner on the MapQuest 4 Mobile on iPhone™. The MQ4M App allows you to search for the Hampton Inn nearest you, while you are on the move!
What a great way to ring in the New Year. Congratulations Hampton Hotels and MapQuest Business Locator! Cheers to continued success in 2010!
In our never-ending 'quest' to provide additional value for our users, MapQuest is continuing to seek relevant partnerships that enhance the experience on MapQuest.com.
We have been hard at work developing new relationships with automotive and other connected navigation system manufacturers and had big news last week!
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), we announced a partnership with Ford Motor Company which will allow MapQuest users to search for destinations on MapQuest.com and be able to "beam" (excuse the Star Trek analogy) them directly to your Ford, Lincoln or Mercury car equipped with the SYNC® Traffic, Directions and Information service.
Imagine I'm planning a trip to do some gambling and found the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas using MapQuest.com. Instead of printing the directions, I just click "Send to SYNC®" to have the information sent to my SYNC® system. Once in my vehicle, I just press the voice button, say "Services", and the vehicle navigation system will then begin route guidance to the MapQuest point of interest.
Now you can plan and research where you want to go online and send it directly to your car. Think of how many drivers will navigate with their eyes on the road, instead of looking down at a printed map.
Posted Dec 22nd 2009 10:00AM by Jarrod Krug Filed under: MapQuest Mobile Web
Since our Mobile Website launched for iPhone and Android devices in November, 2009, several of you requested integration with the GPS support on your device. You asked...and we delivered. In particular for Android devices with version 1.1 or higher, the MapQuest Mobile Website supports an option to enable and use GPS geo-location.
This means:
Type fewer keystrokes. If your device supports GPS, and you haven't denied access to use it on the m.mapquest.com site, you'll have an option to choose "My Current Location" instead of typing an address.
An optimized experience. The MapQuest Mobile Website is optimized for your Android device, no matter what version of the operating system you're using.
Google Gears geo-location support. You'll see a customized alert the first time you complete a form with the "My Current Location" option enabled.
Android 2.0+ geo-location support. If your device is Android 2.0 or higher, your default browser doesn't use gears for geo-location - but it can still acquire position data. We've got support for your device too.
Enabling automatic geo-location support makes our site easier to use, and that's why we made sure it was one of the first upgrades we made to the MapQuest Mobile Website. With Android's growing popularity and powerful features, it was a pretty clear choice to offer this functionality to our users. So pick up your Android phone, start up the browser, and go to www.mapquest.com!
Never thought PowerPoint and Olive oil would go together? Well, you just might find that they do the next time you're planning a trip or searching for something nearby on MapQuest.
Now you'll find more than 700,000 new and informative business listings nationwide in popular search categories such as restaurants, hotels, shopping, spas, bars, clubs and more through our partnership with Citysearch. In addition to more listings, you'll also find greater editorial content for each business including restaurant menus, coupons and special offers, business hours, and customer ratings and reviews, so you can search, research, and of course, get a map or directions to get there.
Imagine you have a business conference in San Francisco in the coming weeks. You know you're staying at the Omni where you'll spend your days staring at PowerPoint presentations and drinking too much coffee, but you're excited that you have one evening off for dinner on your own. If you go big, you may even tack on a movie. It's easier than ever to find more hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and night clubs when planning your trip on www.mapquest.com.
First, just search for the Omni in San Francisco and get a map.
Next, in the "Search Nearby" box, enter a general description of what you're looking for. I searched "Italian Restaurants" (tomatoes and olive oil being two of my favorite things), and more than 150 Italian Restaurant results were returned at my fingertips and shown on the map. Click on the numbered bubbles to see additional information. We now cover over 700,000 places that have additional information such as Reviews, Menus, and more!
I checked out menus, websites and reviews for several nearby popular restaurants before deciding upon Café Tiramisu (really, it wasn't because of the name)!
I then selected the "Directions to" (Café Tiramisu), and voila - I had directions from the Omni to the restaurant which I sent to my cell phone.
The next time you're planning a trip or searching for something nearby, give it a try. You'll be surprised at how easy it is to find and plan to do things near wherever you are on MapQuest!!!
This Holiday Season, we've teamed up with Feeding America and The Salvation Army to show you where your local food banks and thrift stores are in one click.
"The 2009 report on Household Food Insecurity in the United States paints an alarming picture of the pervasiveness of hunger in our nation." A recent report stated 49 million people in America struggled last year to get enough to eat, including almost 17 million children.
We've made it easy to find where the Food Banks are and how to reach them by simply seeing the 'wheat' icon in our Business Locator search tool on any MapQuest map. Click on these Food Bank locations on the map and call to see if they need food, volunteers or monetary donations.
Most people are familiar with the red Salvation Army kettles and bell ringers around town, but there is so much more to this worthwhile organization. The Salvation Army has been a long-time support resource for those with various needs. Donations to their thrift stores help struggling families afford necessities like clothing, books, and household appliances. The profits from the sale of these items help fund the adult rehabilitation program for those looking to get their lives back on track. Call your local thrift store to see what types of items they are in need of, or swing by and find some affordable Holiday gifts for your family & friends. Either way, you're helping!
On the right hand side of any map, click on either of these two icons to see where you can donate or volunteer and don't forget to call ahead to see how best you can help!
What do most users of MapQuest do? Well, they print out their directions and take them with them of course! We know that our print pages go far and wide with users going cross country or nearby. Studies show that even consumers with GPS systems print our MapQuest directions as a back up plan.
Knowing how vital printed directions are to you, we have recently added several features to customize the print out. Now taking your printed map or directions with you take on a whole new meaning with our great new features.
Want to save ink? You now have a choice to print with or without the advertisement.
Choose what you want - print maps only, directions narrative only, or maps and directions narrative together (which is the default.)
While not a new feature, you may not be aware that if you've zoomed, panned, turned on features on the map such as aerial imagery, added points of interest, etc., you can choose to print the map just as you've customized it or as the map originally would be presented by MapQuest.
We know that following the directions in the car may be challenging so now you can choose which print size you want for your directions.
Know how to get out of a neighborhood and want your directions to start at a specific point in your route? Now you can hide and restore specific maneuvers at the click of a button.
Our new cumulative mileage option shows the total distance traveled on the trip alongside the miles for each maneuver in the narrative. Correlate this with your trip odometer and follow along!
In addition to seeing your entire route, you can now add Start and End maps to your print out to help you navigate better.
The Start, End, and Route maps can all be turned on or off individually.
And finally, if you want to see a map of each direction instruction, you have the ability to turn on and off 'maneuver' maps within your driving directions.
We hope you'll enjoy and appreciate all the new options you have to make your printed maps and directions the way you want and need.
Not to be overshadowed by the recent MapQuest.com release of 360 View, the MapQuest Mobile Team has been working around the clock (almost like little North-Pole Elves) to roll-out upgrades, feature enhancements, distribution arrangements with carriers and much more.
Put simply, our mobile software suite is now better than before, can be accessed on more phones and is available through more channels and carriers.
Let's go through the list and see what has changed:
I. Mobile Safari and Android Updates(Mobile Web experience)
We have listened to your requests and added Geo Location to the latest release. That's right, iPhone and Android users visiting MapQuest.com now have the ability to utilize their Smartphone's GPS receiver to pinpoint their current location within the map, directions and search forms.
For those of us that love to "tap" instead of type, this feature is a huge time saver!
A few additional highlights of this release include:
A. Access to saved maps and routes from MapQuest.com B. Utilize walking directions to navigate pedestrian-only paths.
Since its introduction in July, the MapQuest 4 Mobile on iPhone product has gained feature enhancements every month--with December being no exception. Available last week, version 1.2 features many enhancements that our users have long asked for.
The latest release (1.2) includes:
A. Walking directions feature that provides directions to navigate pedestrian-only paths. B. New map styles with terrain and vegetation imagery that emulates the MapQuest.com experience. C. Directions Mode now includes a collapsible "hat" that allows users to expand and contract their route narrative, resulting in a larger view of the map. D. Metric Units Support. In Directions Mode, users can now view their route detail in metric units.
The last few months we have also been busy collaborating with new carriers and distributors to offer the BlackBerry version of MapQuest 4 Mobile to their customers.
As such, we are happy to announce that MapQuest 4 Mobile for BlackBerry is now available as a free download on BlackBerry App World!
In addition, you can also download the product for free at the following locations:
A. http://www.handmark.com B. Sprint customers with BlackBerry phones can download the product via the "PocketExpress" application.
NOTE: New BlackBerry models are coming! Look for the popular 9700 and 9630 models soon via BlackBerry App World.
We are excited to be able to bring you these updates as we head into the New Year. Make sure to check in at http://wireless.mapquest.com to see the latest release information. Happy Holidays from the MapQuest Mobile Team!
With 2009 quickly coming to a close, we at MapQuest have a few more tricks up our sleeve before we all ring-in the New Year. One surprise that we are particularly excited about is our new "360 View". That's right, street-level imagery has come to MapQuest.com, just in time for the holidays!
What is 360 View? As the name implies, 360° view provides fantastic panoramic views (360° horizontally and 160° vertically) of any given image within the 360 View coverage area (initially 30 cities and 15 13 suburbs across the United States with more to come). We have studied our industry, gleaning tidbits here and there, and polled our customer base in creating a simple, easy-to-use interface that fits seamlessly into the MapQuest mapping experience you have come to know and understand. Best of all, MapQuest 360 View "just works" without requiring anynon-standard 3rd party player downloads.
How do I use 360 View? I don't want to read the instructions below, just show me the video! For those that want to read the instructions, continue below.
If you live in a major US metro area within our scope of coverage, you will notice a button labeled "360 View" along the top-left side of the map in our "Maps" or "Directions" tabs. Once you have found the button, the rest is easy:
Complete your location search by entering your information in the MapQuest search fields as you normally would.
Click to enable the "360 View" button and you will quickly see the orange coverage lines that denote 360 View coverage within your specific Map view.
Click the "Launch 360 View" link in the info bubble to open the 360 View Player.
360 View Player Mode Once you have clicked on a location and entered the 360 View Player, you will notice that we have utilized an intuitive, side-by-side display of the street-level imagery and the regular street map. Convenient huh?
In the actual player pane (left-side) you have a few choices available for your "maneuvering delight". You can click on the orange dots to advance your direction--either forward, left or right. And you can also click and drag the image itself to pan horizontally or vertically to change your direction/bearing.
The map view (right-side) is quite handy as well. Moving the green arrow along the map moves your view in the player pane to the left. Don't like where you are and want another location? Use the map control slider to zoom out, then hover over your new location, and click the info bubble to enter a new location.
Keep in mind that when you interact in one pane, it is reflected in the other. For example when you click the dots in the player pane, the green arrow in the map pane moves accordingly and visa-versa.
Find a city, pick a location and start playing! We hope you enjoy seeing MapQuest.com through a new lens! Stay tuned, as 2010 will bring new features to the product as well as new US cities to our coverage area. To see the latest videos, screenshots and feature enhancements, visit: MapQuest.com/360
Posted Dec 4th 2009 6:38PM by Jarrod Krug Filed under: MapQuest.com Beta
So you probably know by now you can search for nearby post offices, schools, parking garages, gas stations, etc. on MapQuest.com, right? And if that wasn't enough, we just added a whole slew of new categories for your search delight.
The new search categories are:
ATM's (Now Over 72,000!)
Parks
Stadium Arenas and Athletic Fields
Tourist Attractions (Includes 1.5M Locations!)
Court Houses
City Hall
Libraries
We have also updated the coverage for the following categories: (This means if you live in a smaller urban areas, it is likely that we now have data to display for you.)
Rest Areas
Bus Stations
Train Stations
Commuter Rail Stations
Park and Ride's
Ski Resorts
Wineries (Over 500 To Search!)
Highway Exits
Tourist Information Centers
To search for these categories, simply visit MapQuest.com and 1.) click on the little magnifying glass icon (see below) or 2.) enter a search term mentioned above into the "Maps", "Find A Business" form field followed by your search City and State.
The following images are a few screenshots of the new categories and how the results are displayed on MapQuest.com:
MapQuest has always had a distinctive unique look and feel for our maps and now we're refreshing this look with a new map style and imagery improvements.
Check out our new features that enhance the map-viewing experience:
If you're looking at a map in North America, you'll notice new terrain and vegetation imagery at zoom levels 4 - 9. Now you can visualize real-world terrain (such as mountains) that you'll be driving through on your next trip across the country.
We've also completely redone the entire road network to improve readability and shape of the roads with the new colors and styling. A cleaner map style is achieved by highlighting the major roads more clearly and the smaller access roads with narrower lines and lighter colors.
In larger cities, we've added more building footprints showing how large a building is on the street. In addition, you'll now see main subway stops shown on the map.
And, not to be left out, take a look at our hybrid imagery view and you'll see that we have improved the look of the roads while not obscuring the imagery.
We hope you enjoy our map updates and look for more imagery updates coming soon!
Monsters, Maidens & Madoffs are sure to make appearances all over the country this Halloween. We love Halloween at MapQuest. In fact, it's not unusual if someone Trick or Treats as our very own "Mark The Star".
If you're a Halloween fanatic like we are, or the kids are bugging you to get them to a local Haunted House, make sure you check out your local Halloween House locations on MapQuest by clicking on the ghost icon within our On Map Search Tool (located on the right hand side the map). For hours and other information about the spooky haunt, click on the specific location bubble on the map and go to the location's website. NOTE: If you don't at first see Haunted Houses in your area, zoom-out to span a wider search area.
We teamed up with our friends at HauntWorld to bring you these haunting locations. Make sure to check them out to find local hay rides, corn mazes, and other ghostly events near you.
Contact MapQuest.com to report errors in maps or directions, update business listings, or to provide general comments or suggestions through MapQuest's online help form.
