My new favorite map site

February 10, 2005 · Comments

Goodbye, [Mappoint](http://www.mappoint.com). See ya, [Mapquest](http://www.mapquest.com). I’m spending a lot of time on map sites, trying to get a handle on where different houses and things are in the Princeton, NJ area. The only map site I’m going to now is [Google Maps](http://maps.google.com).

Too bad it doesn’t work in Safari yet, but most folks have Firefox even if it’s not their default browser.

Googlemap

I can say a lot about how pretty it is. The “pin in the map” effect thanks to the drop shadows help a lot. If the map gets off-center, drag it around and the rendering is smooth (a little glitchy in Firefox, but not bad). You can search for businesses or yellow-pages searches (example that matters to my kids: burger king, princeton, nj)

But what truly blows me away about Google Maps is the directions. They’re not perfect, but they’re more “real world” than the other sites. How many times have you gotten directions via MapQuest where you’ve had to ignore the first 15 steps because they were ridiculous just getting out of your neighborhood? Things such as “Turn SLIGHT RIGHT to stay on STILLWATER AVE.” Or worse, the directions while faster on paper, would take much longer to drive because of all the turns & lights. The directions in Google Maps read like someone was dictating them to you over the phone.

Case in point: The directions from my house to my Mother’s house in Yorktown Heights, NY. There are many different ways to get there. Over the past 5 years since Mom moved there, I’ve tried them all. MapQuest, in 21 steps tells me to take I-95 south to I-287, then the Taconic Parkway North to US-6 and then local directions to my Mom’s condo. There are 10 steps just to get to I-95 from here, many of them useless. This is the “take as many major roads as you can” directions, 41.99 miles, estimate arrival in 55 minutes. This is the way I drove to Northern Westchester, NY when we first moved to Stamford and I didn’t know any better. This is why I stopped using Mapquest and moved on to Mappoint.

So how does Mappoint tell me to visit Grandma? It tells me to take a major local road (SR-104/Long Ridge Road) north, then pick up SR-172 to SR-22 to SR-35. So far so good, that’s a good way of getting there (and scenic, I might add). But then it advises me to get on the Taconic parkway for one exit to get to Mom’s place. Huh?!? While that’s technically possible, it makes no sense whatsoever. It says it’s 29.6 miles and 49 minutes. Mappoint does a better job of leaving out the distracting details in its directions which is why I stopped using Mapquest. But the map is nothing to write home about and it takes a lot of clicks to see the portion you want. Doesn’t resize either. Make the screen bigger, and you just get more blue background.

Google advises Long Ridge Road to 172, then I-684 to 35, then a few local roads to Mom’s door. This is Eric’s favorite way to get there. Realistic. 29 miles, 49 minutes. Better yet, if you’re confused about what to do at step 13, click on the number and that part of the route is blown up and highlighted on the map. Slick. Want to see more of the map without clicking? Just resize the window if your monitor allows.

If this is “beta”, I can’t wait to see what Google Labs still has on the drawing board. And to answer [Erik's](http://www.nslog.com) [Question of the Day](http://nslog.com/archives/2005/02/09/qotd_google_subscription.php):

>With all that Google has, including their new Maps, Gmail, and the pre-existing stuff, how much would you be willing to pay if everything but the basic search features became a subscription service?

I’m with Erik, I’d pay a low yearly fee…something like $20 that includes Maps & Gmail and whatever other goodies they’re cooking up. They probably have some sort of search thingie in the works like everyone else. What I like about Google is that their stuff is cross platform while no one else is, [.Mac](http://www.mac.com) included.

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