A Comparison of the Next Generation of Online Mapping Sites

Online mapping and navigation has become a hot sector of the web industry to say the least. All of the major companies seem to be rolling out new mapping sites with new features to one-up the competition. There are three services leading the charge today. Microsoft’s Windows Local Live, Google Maps, and Yahoo! Maps beta. In this comparison we will go through all three and compare them on the important and the not so important levels.

Note: We are not comparing Yahoo! Maps with these other two but rather Yahoo! Maps BETA. When we say Yahoo! Maps from herein out we are talking about the new beta version.

Windows Local Live
Windows Local Live is part of Microsoft’s new Live initiative which aims to bring many aspects of your daily life to the web under its interfaces. Windows Local Live has several features that set it apart from the competition. Most noticeably would have to be the astounding new “Birds Eye View” which lets you see certain cities in ultra high resolution from multiple angles. It is quite amazing to see, but a little difficult to use. It also may not be that useful for what most people use these sites for, finding out where to go, but it is fun to play with nonetheless.

The most useful feature is the “Scratch Pad” which provides a list of recent places you have located and information about these places. You can also choose how to print the driving directions, this is a nice touch as well, but one of the best features is that you can right click to perform certain functions like plotting starting points, destination points, and add pushpins (a feature that lets you save certain locations to your Scratch Pad for future use).

As for the directions it gave, I received accurate information on how to get where I wanted to go and information I wanted like distance and estimated time for the trip. The business search feature works well, and found everything I was looking for in my tests. Having the business and category search in a different box from the location search is nice and makes creating a query a bit less confusing than with the other sites.

As you would expect, Windows Local Live performs much better on Internet Explorer than it does on Firefox. It does not work well at all for those with slow bandwidth, you will need broadband to use it properly.

Windows Local Live looks very promising and makes use of some great technology. Improve the usability a little, and this will certainly be a contender.

Positives

• Very attractive interface
• Feature rich, Bird’s Eye View is awesome but probably not very useful for most people.
• Scratch Pad is suprising useful
• Searches are accurate and business searches are on topic

Negatives

• A bit slow, not very usuable on slow connections
• Certain features need to be refined and expandend to other cities like Bird’s Eye View

You can visit Windows Local Live at local.live.com

Google Maps
Google Maps was the first of the mapping sites to be very interactive. It feels very solid and loads at a reasonable pace even on a slower connection. Google Maps works well on all web browsers and platforms that I have tested it on.

Features wise it is less interactive than Yahoo! Maps and Windows Local Live. It offers a satellite view, and a view that has a hybrid of the satellite and the street map. To search for a location or directions in Google Maps you enter it as one query in one box, not as a starting point and a destination. It got frustrating a few times while I was trying to create a directions map between two locations and I had to modify the query a few times so it was understood. However, it did offer great directions and the information I needed to make my trip after I had entered the information properly.

Google Maps has the best API out of all of the mapping sites, and many third-party sites have been developed using its technology. The Chicago Police Department’s crime mapping system is an awesome example of this.

Positives

• Attractive interface
• Very stable and refined interface.
• Accurate searches.
• Loads quickly on most connections.
• Great API for customizing the site to your needs.

Negatives

• May not have enough features for some users.
• Querying the site can be a little akward sometimes.

You can visit Google Maps at maps.google.com.

Yahoo! Maps
Yahoo! Maps looks to be the most “under construction” of the three, but looks promising. It does not have a satellite view but has features that other two do not. It has a sidebar which offers many different options starting with the standard get a map and directions input boxes and then below that it has a Find on Map feature that lets you find businesses by the services they offer.

The directions I received on Yahoo! Maps were accurate, and the Find on Map feature provided locations of the restaurants and coffee houses I was looking for.

Yahoo! Maps also offers Live traffic information for select cities, it looks like it could be quite useful for some cities but it is not offered for my city. On the cities where it does work, it offers very detailed information about traffic incidents and delay times.

Positives

• Accurate searches.
• Live traffic feature could be very useful.
• Find On The Map feature is useful and accurate.

Negatives

• Slow and akward interface.
• Not as visually appealing as the other two.

You can visit Yahoo! Maps at maps.yahoo.com/beta/index.php.

Conclusion
Windows Local Live is certainly the most visually appealing among the three and Google Maps loads the quickest. Yahoo! Maps looks very promising right now, but it is not very usable at the moment. To be fair it has been started most recently, so it is not as mature yet. When all of these sites get out of BETA will be a very interesting time indeed.

All three gave me correct directions and the business searches worked well. The developments in this sector of web development are very exciting and are bringing about a new era in interactivity on the web. Try out all three for yourself and see which one you like best.