MapQuest Blog

Archives for MapQuest Local

Subscribe
  1. Mar 21, 2012

    A Look at MapQuest: March 2012 Infographic

    Anke Corbin · Posted in: MapQuest Local, mqVibe

    Don’t know about you, but we here at MapQuest have found infographics – or “data eye-candy” – to be a much more interesting way of visualizing the billions of data points we evaluate instead of the standard spreadsheet.  With more than 36 million* people searching for maps, directions, and places such as restaurants, airports, hotels and top brands every month, data is something we have a lot of and it says a lot about what’s interesting to you.  So, we wanted to show some of the more interesting information about what people are doing on MapQuest.  Click here or on the infographic image below for the full size.

    We even used our big data and what we know about where people like to go to create our latest local discovery product, MapQuest Vibe.   If you haven’t had a chance to download one of the top free travel apps in the iPhone store, go to www.mqvibe.com or search for mqvibe in the iPhone store to help you find cool neighborhoods and the best restaurants, bars, and shopping wherever you are traveling.

    We hope you enjoy this look at what’s happening on MapQuest!  If you have any questions or would like additional about the infographic, please contact Anke Corbin at anke.corbin@mapquest.com.

    *comScore January 2012

  2. Sep 8, 2011

    MapQuest Local Business Center: Make your Business Listing Stand Out!

    haoliwang · Posted in: Business Tools, MapQuest Local

    Here’s the last post of our blog series on how to make the most of your MapQuest business listing. In this post, we’ll show you how to gain more competitive advantages by upgrading to a Premium Business Listing.

    What are MapQuest Premium Listings?
    MapQuest offers two types of premium business listings – MapQuest Only and Multi-site. Both options ensure that your business listing not only reflects accurate information, but also helps your business stand out from your competition with a custom marketing message.

    Custom Marketing Message in a MapQuest Premium Business Listing

    Custom Marketing Message in a MapQuest Premium Business Listing

    Benefits of MapQuest Only Premium Listings
    For only 27 cents per day, MapQuest Only Premium Listings helps your business stand out from the competition with a bright green tag and up to 50 characters of custom marketing text on MapQuest.com. In addition to the benefits of a free listing, the premium listing can help your business gain more clicks, phone calls, requests for directions, or clicks to your website. MapQuest has more than 40MM users per month and they will see your featured services, discount info or any other marketing messages when they’re searching for that category.

    Benefits of Multi-site Premium Listings
    If you upgrade to the Multi-site Premium Listing Package, your marketing message and listing information will not only be reflected on MapQuest, but also on 8 or more major sites including: Yelp, Yahoo!, SuperPages, CitySearch, White Pages, Yellowbook, YellowBot and LOCAL.  For about $1 per day, you can control your business listing across all of these sites from one location and ensure that your business information, such as your address, phone number, website and more, are accurate.  Rest assured that your listing is up-to-date and standing out when potential customers are searching are searching for your business.

    How to Optimize Your Marketing Message
    Here are some tips you can use for your premium listing Special Offer message.  You change the Special Offer message at any time and it will update on the site within four hours. You can also track the total impressions and clicks to your business listing to see how effective it is.

    • Use your daily specials, like daily discount, happy hour, and latest products. These can attract more customers who are looking for good deals.
    • Add your Featured Products and Services to help you get closer to your target market.
    • Use your Awards as tag messages, as customers would always like to choose the business recognized as the best.
    • Try your slogan or other messages to separate your business from the competition.

    Success Story: Falls Motel
    Falls Motel, a motel in International Falls, MN, took advantage of the multi-site premium listing allowing them to not only display accurate information across all the sites, but also highlight their Special Offer marketing message: Clean comfortable rooms at an affordable rate. You can see their listing now on MapQuest.com, Yahoo! and the other popular sites included in the package.

    Sign up for a MapQuest Premium Listing today to stand out from your competitors!

  3. Sep 1, 2011

    MapQuest Local Business Center: Add Photos, Video and more

    sonjalowe · Posted in: Business Tools, MapQuest Local

    Did you know you can get a free business listing with photos, videos and more on one of the largest sites on the web?  In this fourth post of this blog series about MapQuest’s Local Business Center, we’ll walk you through how to add all of this great content to your MapQuest business listing.

    Business Photos and Video
    Stand out from the crowd by posting photos and a video of your business!  Once you’ve logged into the Local Business Center, go to the Enhance My Listing page and add a “Storefront Photo” so that customers can easily recognize your business from the road. If you have photos of your store’s interior or other relevant photos, add these to “Additional Photos”.  Make sure all photos are high quality images and enter a brief caption describing the photos, ideally using relevant keywords in order to optimize your search engine ranking.  A YouTube video can also be added. Just copy and paste the link to your video into the text box next to the “YouTube Video” section on the same page.

    MapQuest Business Listing with Video

    Business Hours and Payment Methods
    Help customers easily find your business hours by adding them to the Enhance My Listing page under “Business Hours”. Be specific so that customers know which days of the week and hours of the day you are open. You can also let customers know the types of credit cards accepted, whether you take cash or checks, and if financing and invoicing are available options, under the “Payment Methods” section of the same page.

    Location and Parking Tips
    Help customers find your business easily by giving them details on where to park.  These could be tips such as “Take the elevator to the 3rd floor, and go to the last door on the right” or, “Look for a blue building with a white door.” Parking can also be a source of difficulty for customers, so it may help them if you provide tips as to the best place to park, how to get there, and how much it will cost. This is also a great place to mention if your business validates parking or offers valet parking. You can make all these edits on the Enhance My Listing page.

    Success Story: Play Music & Art
    Play Music & Art, a small business in Canton, GA, took full advantage of their listing with a great storefront photo, video and parking info.  Take a peak at their business listing to see what’s possible in your own.

    MapQuest users love business listings with photos, videos and parking tips – hopefully you’ll take a few minutes and update your listing with this great info!

  4. Aug 25, 2011

    MapQuest Local Business Center: Correct Your Business Listing Location on MapQuest

    Anne Carney · Posted in: Business Tools, MapQuest Local

    MapQuest’s Local Business Center wants businesses to make the most out of their listings. We’ve gone over how to get the most out of a basic listing and how to improve SEO with keywords and categories. In this post, we’ll show you how to customize the company location on MapQuest’s maps. With the Map Marker Locator you can pinpoint exactly where the company location is and map nearby parking. Once the map location is up-to-date, our 42 million users will be able to find your business listing with ease.

    Map Locator
    When filling out the listing, you will be asked, “Does the business location look correct to you?” Next to the question appears a map showing a marker where MapQuest pinpointed the business address.  Take time and make sure the location is accurate; if the location is incorrect, now is a quick and easy chance to fix it.

    Business Listing Map Marker

    Use the business listing tool to move the map markers for your business location. The blue icon reflects the location of your actual building and the red icon is what MapQuest uses to calculate directions.

    To get started, just click on the map. From here, you can drag the marker around until the correct location has been found. The marker can be placed anywhere, even if the location is a mile off the main road, the marker can go there. This is helpful for customers who may not know there is a long driveway or access road to the location.

    Ensure Accurate Directions
    Click the next button to edit the access point to your location. MapQuest uses this icon to calculate directions.  This is helpful if the road to the building is in an unexpected location or if businesses prefer to direct people to a parking lot. The red marker with the car can be moved, but unlike the Map Marker it has to be placed on an road.

    MapQuest’s Map Marker Locator tool is ready for businesses to use and map out their location. Companies can update, move, and zoom until comfortable with the marker location and know that every aspect of their listing is correct. Improve and update your listing today at listings.mapquest.com.

  5. Aug 11, 2011

    MapQuest Local Business Center: Free Listing Basics

    Anne Carney · Posted in: Business Tools, MapQuest Local

    Create a free business listing today with MapQuest’s Local Business Center, giving you access to the more than 40MM people on MapQuest.com! With our Local Business Center, you can control your business listing to make sure it’s accurate and add additional information that can drive more customers to your door. In this first post of our five part blog series, we’ll show you the basic steps to help you make the most of your business listing.

    Getting Started
    To get started on the Local Business Center, you must first claim your business. Make sure that MapQuest has the correct information for your business location, or choose to add a new listing if it doesn’t already exist. Once you have claimed your business, it is time to enter in your basic company information. This is your opportunity to obtain free marketing and show consumers why they should choose you.  Check out our short video tutorial for more tips on how to get started.

    Business Listing Name
    When entering the company title for your business listing you want to make sure it reflects what your business does. It should be the exact name of your company or organization – no “nicknames” or added tag lines are needed. When people are looking up business listings on the map, this is what will be bolded when they put their cursor over your business location.

    Business Listing Details
    The main key here is to have all of the company information correct and clear. Be sure to double-check the phone number, website, reservation website, hours, and credit card listings for accuracy. None of this information should be a part of the title; instead, it will be in the ‘more info’ section that a visitor will see when they want to view more details about your business. The time to be creative is in the business listing description.

    Business Listing Description
    This is the place to market your business and where you want to be creative and concise. The business description should have your competitive advantage, and explain what you do, who you are, and why customers should seek out your business. You want to limit the amount you write while also providing enough detail to showcase your business. This is where you need to take the time to add those SEO keywords about your business to add to your search engine ranking.

    Success Story: Gasthas Eichler
    Gasthas Eichler, a boutique hotel in Colorado, has all the key qualities of a successful business listing on MapQuest.com. It has a clear, accurate title and the listing has all of the important company information for customers including correct address, phone number, reservations site and website. It has a great description of the business with its competitive advantage and information about specific offerings and amenities.  This listing provides enough information to spark a consumer’s interest when booking a hotel.

    Local Business Center Example

    In our next blog post of this series, we will give you more tips on creating your business listing.  To take advantage of this free marketing now, just go to listings.mapquest.com and enhance your business listing today!

  6. Oct 2, 2009

    Welcome to Fall!

    Jarrod Krug · Posted in: MapQuest Local

    Fall has many special occasions, and among them the changing of the leaves. Growing up, I was fortunate enough to experience the vibrant reds, oranges, maroons & yellows of Fall in Vermont. I spent my college years in southwest Virginia where the beautiful maroon and orange colors were indicative of my school’s colors and meant that it was football season. These days I’m in Denver, Colorado with a different view of Fall as the Aspens turn a bright green and then to a vibrant gold color. Although the leaves here are beautiful in their own right, I must say that the most beautiful Fall seasons that I’ve experienced were in Vermont & Upstate New York.

    If you’re looking for some great foliage viewing and need some ideas, check out this list put together by our friends at Digital City. If you need a few tips for your trip planning, make sure you make use of all of MapQuest’s features:

    Low on Funds?

    • Check out our handy fuel cost calculator- it uses your car’s gas mileage in conjunction with the length of your trip and gas prices in your area to determine the cost of your route.
    • Drag your route to see side roads and more foliage. (Save your route too!)

    Looking for hotels to stay at along your route?

    • Click on our on-map search tool on the right of the map- you can select either the bed icon or a brand that you prefer on the toolbar. Scroll up or down to see more options.
    • Check for restaurants or gas stations too!

    Planning in advance?

    • Save your trip in your “My Places” account for easy access online OR on your mobile device!
    • Check out MapQuest Local to see what else is happening at your destination.

    Going on a whim?

    Safe Travels!

  7. Sep 22, 2009

    Our New Missing and Exploited Children Widget

    Jarrod Krug · Posted in: MapQuest Local

    Over at local.mapquest.com, we have Widgets that help you find just about anything near you. For instance, you can easily find local concerts, blogs, tweets, movies, classifieds, restaurants…and the list goes on.

    While these widgets are extremely useful and functional, none compare to the importance and impactful nature of our new Missing and Exploited Children Widget powered by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

    The new widget features pictures and information about children who are missing from your default local area established on local.mapquest.com. You can also search for missing children by name and link directly to NCMEC’s website for other missing children resources.

    Continuing a relationship with NCMEC that spans nearly 10 years, AOL and MapQuest believe the new widget is an informative method for anyone to easily help in the search for missing children.

    The new widget can be found at http://local.mapquest.com

  8. Feb 24, 2009

    Dude! I Love Your Band!

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: MapQuest Local

    Tour Tracker on MapQuest LocalI’ve been making plans for the annual pilgrimage to Austin, TX for SXSW Interactive. Austin is also the “Live Music Capital of the World.” Being a former resident, I can attest to this.

    So to help me find concerts while I’m in town and to help you find concerts wherever you may go, this morning we released a Tour Tracker widget on MapQuest Local. MapQuest Local is already part of my “where to go, what to do” toolbox, both on my desktop and on my iPhone. As a music-lover, being able to find what concerts are coming to town is helpful. That’s what Tour Tracker does.

    The Tour Tracker widget allows you to sort upcoming concert listings by date and music genre near your current location. You can also get a map or directions to the concert venue and you can hop over to AOL Music for tickets and additional information about the show.

    It’s all happening… on MapQuest Local.

  9. Feb 4, 2009

    MapQuest Earns 3 Hitwise Top 10 Awards

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: Gas Prices, MapQuest Local

    You may think of MapQuest just as a maps site, but with all the features we’ve added over the last year, we’re branching out to be a travel resource for millions of consumers. Users are finding valuable services such as our Gas Prices site or finding out what’s going on around them using our Local site to enhance their overall travel experience. Whether they’re finding what’s nearby home or what to do at their far-away destination, more MapQuest users are using us for a variety of valuable travel features.

    As proof of the popularity of our expanded resources, Hitwise, a leading online intelligence service, recently presented MapQuest with awards in the Travel-Maps category. Every quarter, Hitwise recognizes the 10 most popular websites in over a 160 categories.

    For the forth quarter of 2008, MapQuest is proud to have earned three awards:

    The Hitwise Top 10 Award Program is based on popularity according to the market share of user visits a website receives compared to other websites in their industry during a specific period.

  10. Jan 29, 2009

    MapQuest Local for iPhone

    Larry Myers · Posted in: MapQuest Local, MapQuest Mobile Web

    My Name is Larry; I use an iPhone

    Since getting an iPhone, I’ve started leaving the laptop at home when I travel. While visiting family in Indiana for the holidays, I discovered that MapQuest Local was in need of a few enhancements when viewed on the iPhone. One of the great things about being a developer for MapQuest is having the ability to do something about this; I wanted to make MapQuest Local a first class citizen on the iPhone. So now, with the support of both the Mobile and Local teams, you can now see MapQuest Local as part of the MapQuest.com experience.

    iphone local location bar

    Local, Wherever You Are

    iphone local menuWhenever you type http://local.mapquest.com into the address bar on Mobile Safari, you’ll find that you can now view MapQuest Local. Additionally, you can also visit http://www.mapquest.com and find Local as a new item listed in the dropdown menu.

    With MapQuest Local, you can find a place to eat, a movie to see afterwards, and check current traffic incidents all while on the go. It seamlessly integrates with MapQuest experience on the iPhone, so you can get directions and view maps of where you’re going. Also, we’ve only included the content and links to our content partners with mobile-friendly sites.

    iphone yelp example

    Look for additional content and features on MapQuest Local and our Mobile products in the near future.

  11. Dec 23, 2008

    Top 8 in 2008: A MapQuest Year in Review

    Chip Diffendaffer · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local, MapQuest Mobile Apps, MapQuest Mobile Web

    For many, the end of the year presents an opportunity to reflect on everything that the year has brought. Let’s take a moment to see some of our key accomplishments in 2008.

    We completed an amazing amount of work behind the scenes, but it’s the services we provide to our users that matter most in the end. So, in expedient fashion in order to move straight to planning for 2009, here’s our Top 8 in 2008 review:

    #8 – Fuel Cost for Trip Calculation

    Fuel Cost for Trip Calculation

    With gas prices spiking over the summer, many people were forced to evaluate just how much a trip might cost them. By entering your vehicle information in the settings for My MapQuest, we can help you estimate the cost of gas for a trip based on your vehicle’s miles per gallon and the local gas prices along your route.

    MapQuest on iPhone

    #7 – MapQuest on iPhone

    No doubt the iPhone is a popular gadget. You’ve always been able to access MapQuest.com from your iPhone but, we launched an iPhone-optimized site which automatically loads when you visit MapQuest.com from your iPhone. The site offers the iPhone flick and pinch gestures that so many love.

    #6 – Real-Time Traffic

    In March, we launched our real-time traffic feature. With coverage now in over 100 metro areas, you can view traffic flow, road closures, incidents, and construction to plan your drive. Traffic is even available on MapQuest for mobile web and our iPhone web version.

    #5 – Draggable Routes

    Our Draggable Routes feature launched in November and lets you drag your route to get you to your destination the way you want. Draggable routes lets you create directions around that stretch of highway you know is under construction, drive that scenic route along the highway, and drive through other parts of the city/state/country on your trip.

    MapQuest for Mobile on Blackberry Bold

    #4 – MapQuest 4 Mobile

    Getting maps and directions is easy from your computer. But,often times, you need to find places and get directions when you are out and about. MapQuest 4 Mobile, our new, free mobile application, makes that a snap on many BlackBerry devices and carriers.

    #3 – Saving Your Maps and Routes with My MapQuest

    How often do you plan your trip or route in advance? With the introduction of My MapQuest this November, you can now save your maps and directions and retrieve them anytime. You can even save the directions you’ve customized with draggable routes (see feature #5) for later use.

    #2 – MapQuest Local

    MapQuest Local

    MapQuest Local released with accolades in September. With loads of locally relevant content including news, movies, reviews, and much more bundled into a single page for a single location, Local is a great new online destination for finding what’s going on in your destination location.

    #1 – Brand Refresh

    Last but not least, we refreshed the MapQuest identity as a reflection of our site’s evolution. The logo was redrawn from scratch, to make it fresh & modern, yet familiar and instantly recognizable. Mark the Star The colors are sharper, the layout of MapQuest.com is cleaner and the brand is more vibrant and proud. It’s a design that stays true to what you said MapQuest means to you.

    We also re-introduced “Mark the Star,” a fun and friendly character who marks the locations you find on MapQuest. He’s been with us from the beginning, but he finally got a little polish, personality and an elevated status across the site.

    And of course, we can’t forget you. You’ve sent us your stories, your suggestions, your questions and corrections. A small group of you even worked closely with us weekly-sometimes daily- to provide your feedback and direction on our projects and concepts. Your feedback was crucial to the successful launch of all 8 products listed above. A heartfelt “thank you” from all of us at MapQuest.

    And now, onward to 2009!

  12. Dec 11, 2008

    MapQuest Local Gets More Social with Twitter; Adds Jobs

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: MapQuest Local

    Twitter

    When our team set out to build MapQuest Local, we wanted it to be very different than the “local experience” found historically online. One of our early objectives was to make MapQuest Local more social – connect people and ideas in a local area together.

    Today we’ve released a new social widget on MapQuest Local: Twitter. To the techie demographic of MapQuest users, this service needs no introduction, however since we have 46 million unique users a month (including my mom), here’s a quick overview for the unfamiliar:

    Twitter is a popular short-messaging service for people to announce what they are doing in 140 characters or less. The Twitter widget on MapQuest Local lets you see what people are talking about in their city or town. For any city you visit on our Local site, you’ll see the most recent things that people in that area have posted or “tweeted.” If you see someone interesting, you can then click their Twitter username to see additional “tweets” they’ve made or click the “See More…” link at the bottom of the widget for additional local posts.

    Nobody knows Local better than locals; Twitter helps you find them and lets you know what they’re talking about.

    You can also keep up with articles, news and other MapQuest information by following MapQuest on Twitter.

    AOL Careers

    Another piece of content we’re excited to announce is the addition of a widget by AOL Careers through their partnership with CareerBuilder.com. The Careers widget will store up to five different sets of search keywords for job searches. When you change your location, it’ll go out and pull in job matches in that area. It’s useful content whether you’re actively searching for a new gig or just curious what’s going on in the local job market.

    The First Four Months of MapQuest Local

    The feedback has been overwhelming positive and looking at the numbers, it looks like you’ve been finding MapQuest Local very useful. Don’t forget to tell us what you think and what content you want to see added next. We enjoy working on Local, we’re very excited about what we’ll be adding in 2009.

    Have a happy and safe holiday season!

  13. Oct 29, 2008

    MapQuest Local Adds AddThis

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: MapQuest Local

    This morning we updated MapQuest Local with some enhancements and bug fixes to make using Local more useful and make it easier to share information.

    AddThis

    To anyone familiar with blogs, AddThis buttons on sites at the bottom of posts and online news articles are pretty common. However, if you’re not already familiar with AddThis, it’s a service which allows you to easily share and bookmark pages to some of your favorite web sites, in this case: MapQuest Local pages. You can even use it to email a MapQuest Local link to a friend or set it as your home page (although you’ve probably already done that).

    To use it, simply click the big plus button on the Location Bar at the top of the page and it will open up a list of sites to publish to. If your favorite site is not on the list, just click the “more” link for more choices.

    AddThis Screenshot

    Name and Number Please?

    You may have noticed that MapQuest Local works a bit differently than the rest of MapQuest. Much of the address information is coming from other sites instead of our own internal data. As a result, when you clicked the “Maps” or “Get Directions” links, we weren’t able to pass along the business name or phone number into your map results. Well, we’ve fixed that. So now when you click the “Maps” and “Get Directions” links from any widget, the business name and phone number (if available) get passed along too.

    A few simple things we’ve added that make MapQuest Local easier to share and more convenient to use.

  14. Oct 9, 2008

    MapQuest Local Turns One (Month)

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local

    One month ago we launched MapQuest Local, bringing you an easy-to-use dashboard of local activities, events, and other information to give you some “what” and “when” to go with your “where.”

    Two weeks ago we released a Classifieds widget from Kaango, Used Auto Listings from AOL Autos and added support for Microformats. We also continued to tweak and optimize the page to improve performance and your experience.

    Yelp widget screenshotToday we’re happy to announce even more additions:

    Yelp

    Yelp provides review information and city guides to help you find out the good, great, and as they put it “not so great” around you. There are reviews for car washes, wineries, pet stores, and much more. I think I’ve even seen a review for a parking garage. The reviewers are locals and visitors telling Yelp what they thought. Now on MapQuest Local, you can quickly see the best of what Yelp users have found and liked near you.

    Sports

    Our friends at Topix are providing MapQuest Local with sports news for baseball, hockey, and pro and college football and basketball. Sports is also the first widget you can customize beyond the local city or town. Like other widgets, we try to find the closest relevant content to where you’re looking, however we also know that your team isn’t necessarily the closest team. Trust us, at our PA office, the our closest NFL team is the Eagles, but a good chunk of our colleagues root for the Steelers. So now you can choose between getting sports news from the local team or from your team for each sport. Just click the little gear icon to flip around the widget and customize.

    Sports widget configuration

    Links and Tooltips

    We wanted to make it easier for you to bookmark MapQuest Local for different cities, so we’re introducing bookmark links which are easier-to-read. For instance, if you want to see what’s going on locally in Lancaster, PA, your bookmarked link will look like this: http://local.mapquest.com/lancaster-pa.

    MapQuest Local Location Bar: http://local.mapquest.com/lancaster-pa

    We’ve also added additional information to some of our local content by using tooltips. Now when you hover over certain content like photos or used car images, additional information will appear. See below for some examples.

    Tooltip examples

    We’re Just Getting Started

    Our team loves working on MapQuest Local and we have so many cool features yet to bring you. If you have a site with local content and want to show it on MapQuest Local, don’t forget to sign-up for notifications about our MapQuest Local Program. True story: A month ago Yelp was the third organization to sign-up, they were great to work with and today they went live on MapQuest Local. Who’s next? You?

  15. Sep 25, 2008

    Microformat Support on MapQuest Local

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local

    MapQuest Local now supports the hCard, hCalendar, and draft Geolocation Microformats.

    A Micro-what?

    Here’s a down-to-earth explanation:

    With a little help from your web browser, Microformats on MapQuest Local will allow you to save contact information to your address book. For example: the name, address, phone number and web address of a restaurant or movie theater. You can also save event information to your calendar application. So for example: the date and showtimes for a movie, along with the address information. This makes the information more portable and therefore more useful to you.

    How do I See and Use Microformat Information?

    Many sites have implemented Microformats, but most current web browsers don’t have built-in support yet. Future browser releases will; MapQuest Local is ready today. In the meantime, you can take advantage of Microformats through browser plug-ins and bookmarklets.

    Here’s a quick example on adding a location to an Address Book application using the Operator add-on for Mozilla Firefox on Mac OS X. Your set-up may vary, but the steps will be very similar.

    • In #1, I’ve selected the “Contacts” list in the Operator toolbar. Notice that the locations in the list match locations on the MapQuest Local page
    • In #2, I’ve selected a location
    • In #3, I’ve selected the option to export
    • In #4, I now have a new entry in my Address Book application with all of the fields correctly filled in
    • In #5, by syncing my address book with my mobile device, I now have the information easily at hand for later reference

    Adding Event information to your calendar is pretty much the same process.

    This is just another in the many ways we’re working on making all of MapQuest more useful.

    PS: There are some additional recommendations on the Microformats site for Microformat-enabling your broswer.

  16. Sep 24, 2008

    New on MapQuest Local: AOL Autos and Kaango Classifieds

    Ant · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local

    Wanted: Classified Information

    Earlier this month, we introduced you to MapQuest Local, giving you a customizable dashboard of localized content for cities and towns. We also put out a call for sites with local content, asking if they would like to make that content available. The response has been huge! Our friends at Kaango were one of the first to talk with us and today we’re happy to release: Classifieds provided by Kaango.

    Car Shopping?

    Today we’ve also added Used Auto Listings from AOL Autos. Search local autos by make and model and scroll through photos in your quest to find a new ride.

    What’s Next?

    We’re hard at work on even more content and features. If you’ve got local content and want display it on MapQuest Local, don’t forget to sign-up for more information about our MapQuest Local Program.

  17. Sep 9, 2008

    Bring Us YOUR Local Content and Feeds!

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local

    Do you own a website with local content?

    Would you like to reach over 47M+ Unique Users every month?

    As a follow up to our initial release of MapQuest Local, we wanted to also provide some insight into our future Local plans. We know there are numerous web sites out there with rich and relevant local content that would be of interest to our users. So, we’ll be opening up MapQuest to enable you to expose your content and drive traffic directly back to your site.

    If you want access to the 12th largest web site audience in the US – an audience who comes to with an interest in one or more explicit locations – bring us your feeds! Bring us your location relevant content. Bring us useful information both general and niche. If you’re a venture capitalist, bring us the companies you’re backing. If you’re a start-up or big Internet powerhouse – let’s talk. If you’re a one-person operation with a pizza shop review blog: that’s great content! We want to hear from you.

    We’re already working with our next set of partners for relevant content to MapQuest Local for the next batch of widgets, want to join too?

    If you’re interested in being a part of the wave of content on MapQuest Local, visit this sign-up form. Locations are much more than a red star on a map. With your help, we’re looking forward to bringing a more Local experience to all MapQuest visitors.

    - Your MapQuest Local Team

  18. Sep 9, 2008

    MapQuest Goes Local

    Josh Babetski · Posted in: Features and Improvements, MapQuest Local

    Today we are launching MapQuest Local – the next step in our journey to add more relevant content to your maps and directions experience.

    Local on the Internet is not new. For years, many websites have offered local guides or local content, but its often limited to just the largest cities and only a few categories. This requires you to hunt and peck all over the Internet to find the local information you need whether it’s a place you live or are visiting. But now, MapQuest is providing a way to get your information all in one place, across all the categories you care about, large city OR small.

    What does that really mean? Imagine spreading out your Sunday newspaper sections out all at once and seeing the highlights of all the sections on one page. That’s what the new MapQuest Local brings to you! We’re giving you a view of the information available around the web for the area you’re interested in.

    Here’s how it works:

    You can easily get to MapQuest Local by clicking on the new orange Local icon at the top of the page or look for the orange links throughout the MapQuest site.

    If you’ve visited the Local page before, we remember the last location you entered. If not, we pick a location for you by determining if you have a saved a default, home or work location, from our settings page. Didn’t know we had a settings page? You do now! So take a moment and set up your default settings. If you don’t have a default, we’ll use the most recent search on MapQuest. Or course, you can always choose a new city by clicking the “Change Location” link next to the current location. If you enter an address, just remember that MapQuest Local will just use the city.

    MapQuest’s approach to ‘local’ is to provide you access to local information (including news, events, movies, gas prices and other local content) in a simple, easy to use interface that is draggable, customizable and collapsible. When you change your location, each widget will update to match your selection. You can also refresh a widget’s content by clicking the circular arrow button or expand or collapse a widget using the +/- button . Each widget contains links that will take you to the content provider. Pretty easy, right?

    To rearrange the widgets into whatever order you’d like, just click on the top of the widget and drag it to wherever you’d like. If you don’t want to display a widget, you can turn it off by clicking the “Customize This Page” link at the top of the page. The customization panel will also let you choose to auto-update every 10 minutes.

    We’re starting out with a great set of data including movie listings, restaurants, traffic, news, weather, gas prices, events, pictures, video and city’s best recommendations. So, how could you use this? Here’s an example. Once you’ve decided to go see a particular movie, you don’t want more information on that movie; you want to know where you can see it and what theaters are near you. But, what if you want to go to dinner before the movie, where’s the nearest restaurant and what if there’s traffic issues to get there, what’s an alternative route? And, you need to get gas but you want the lowest prices – do you want to get gas near home or near the movie theater. You get the idea, all this and more can be found in one easy page on MapQuest Local. We’re creating a localized experience for you around the place you’re going to be.

    Again, this is just the beginning of the MapQuest Local experience. We look forward to providing you with new features and content coming out soon. More categories and data offerings will be coming soon. So, come back often and if you have interests in specific topics not available today in MapQuest Local, please send us your suggestions through the feedback link.

    Come to us to experience what’s around your location!

    - Your MapQuest Local Team

MapQuest Blog RSS

Want to stay updated on all the latest advances that MapQuest is making? Subscribe to our blog feed and be among the first to receive the news!

Follow @MapQuest on Twitter

Products

Solutions & Technology

Additional Information

Follow MapQuest