MapQuest is, to be fair, still the winner in terms of market share.  Its edge is shrinking, however, and Google’s comparatively heavy focus on new features may be the reason.  Cowen and Company analysts told Stephen Shankland, "Since our initial survey in July 2007, innovation at (AOL’s) MapQuest and Yahoo Maps has stagnated."

Before the stock market fell off a cliff this afternoon, they also said, "Yahoo and MapQuest do not have the resources to keep pace and are forced to aggressively monetize a declining franchise in the maps segment."

Since the Nasdaq’s down 7.36 percent at the moment, perhaps Google will leap into the monetization game and put itself on equal footing.  But another possibility is that the shaky economy will just cause Google’s competitors to lose ground faster, leaving the search giant in control of yet another market.

For the record, Google Map Maker launched in another 17 countries late last week.

Search engines have been fascinated with maps, likely as an offshoot of their keener interest in local search and the potential for advertising profits. This benefits the typical Internet user, as competing search engines compete for attention.

Yahoo’s latest move presents users of its mapping service with the ability to drag and drop a route between two points. This lets the person choose to avoid a busy section of a trip, or make the trip a more scenic one.

More details emerged on the Yahoo Local & Maps blog:

Once you get your directions to your destination, if you don’t quite like what you see, you can pick up your route and drop it somewhere else, and we’ll drive you through the area you select in the most efficient manner.

If that’s still not quite right, you can tug on the route again until it’s perfect. Of course you can undo your thought-points whenever you like, or go back to your original route. We’ll even tell you the difference in mileage and estimated time between your personalized route and our fastest route.

Yahoo also made some tweaks to business searching on a map, by providing more information like reviews and photos within the business popups.

Fair warning: this new feature only works “for a limited set of metropolitan areas,” and there’s no word as to when (or where) it might be expanded.  Still, as announced by Eli Brandt, a software engineer, on the Google LatLong Blog, “Google Maps now lets you know how long a drive might take in rush-hour traffic.”

This could save you from showing up for a job interview 45 minutes early (if you overcompensated for Google’s estimates), or worse yet, 50 minutes late (if you didn’t).  Brandt acknowledges that the software isn’t perfect – it apparently works with stored traffic data, and not real-time info – but the development is definitely a positive one.

It’s also one that puts Google a figurative step ahead; The Utility Belt’s Jon Fortt notes, “Yahoo (YHOO) Maps and Microsoft’s Live Search, two of Google’s main competitors, do not yet calculate traffic drive times.”

Neither does MapQuest, which remains the leader in this field.  But innovations like this (and figures like these) indicate that Google Maps could climb to the top in the not-too-distant future.

Their new Personalized Trip Recommendations module features ten destinations based on a users online activity and preferences. The module also links to information on air/hotel deals, weather, travel suggestions from Yahoo users and a destination Travel Guide.

"We want to fundamentally transform the way people plan and research their trips and our Trip Recommendations are designed to inspire people with new ideas of where to go, and the best price for getting there," said Jasper Malcolmson, director of Yahoo! Travel.

"By tapping into the collective intelligence of other like-minded travelers, there is a greater ability to plan and take truly memorable trips – no matter how near or far you want to go."

The site also features Personalized Travel Deals that show results of the best hotel and flight options based on closest airport and the best prices found by other Yahoo users.

In addition Yahoo has added a new mapping functionality that allows other maps to be layered over a Yahoo Map providing greater detail of a location and customized mapping options.

The Yahoo Messenger Flight Planner is another new feature that has an instant messenger plug-in that allows users to research and make flight reservations in real-time with friends or family. The flight planner plug-in searches for the most economical fares on Yahoo FareChase, enabling users to choose the best flight deal together.

Part of Yahoo’s strategy aimed at snaring more of the local search advertising pie, predicted to be rising to $7.7 billion by research firm Borrell Associates, involves a combination of its Maps and Local services. Together they can get a person to a business by its online ads, and then to the physical storefront.

The service those consumers encounter online needs to meet their expectations. Yahoo has several features in play that they hope can separate them from the efforts of Google and Microsoft among others in the field.

Some of the features on the new Yahoo! Maps include multi-point routing, satellite and aerial imagery for the US and over 100 international cities, and options for working with saved locations for those who frequent a number of places repeatedly.

“In addition to releasing the new Yahoo! Maps, we’re also rolling out street-level maps for Europe,” Mike Lawless, product manager on the Yahoo! Maps team, wrote. “These are available almost anywhere Yahoo! Maps can be found, whether on Flickr in their photo mapping feature, Yahoo! Travel’s Trip Planner product, and of course to our external developer community using Yahoo! Maps APIs.”

Lawless also noted how user requests drove the addition of new functionality. Users of the new service will need Flash Player 7 and a broadband connection to connect to it.

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The new satellite imagery will help people visualize maps, driving directions, and local search, and is available across Yahoo! and to developers through their APIs. Highlights include: Wall-to-wall coverage within the lower 48 states in the US; global images at 15 meters per pixel; maps and overlays at medium resolution for the whole world – The new imagery and global maps are available for API developers on the Yahoo! Developer Network. See http://developer.yahoo.com/maps/index.html and the Yahoo! Developer Network

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Anything Geospatial: Tracking developments affecting GIS, geospatial technologies, location-based services, mapping, google earth and google maps. Published by the creator and editor of GISuser.com & LBSzone.com

Michael Lawless and Vince Maniago from Yahoo! Maps posted the announcement of satellite image availability. At Yahoo Maps, the site now contains comprehensive coverage of the continental US at a high resolution.

That coverage includes detailed resolution Yahoo lists as 15 meters per pixel, or zoom level 5, medium resolution, for the global maps and overlays it makes available for locations outside the US.

The Maps team also took the step of smoothing out the satellite images. Seam lines for the images have been nicely buffed away, and the Maps team also normalized the colors used for the image display. This adds up to a much cleaner look, and contributes to an impressive appearance when viewing hybrid maps.

As with many of its projects, Yahoo has made the Maps APIs available previously to developers in its Developer Network. Developers can now use the new satellite imagery and global maps in the mashups they create.

Now that Yahoo has caught up to a couple of major online competitors with its maps, things begin to get interesting. SiliconBeat reported from the SDForum meeting where the focus was on maps and the presenters included Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Ask.com, a mapping competitor as well.

The article noted some likely gentle sniping between the presenters, with Yahoo taking pains to note the previously-mentioned seamless appearance of its maps. That contrasts with some of its competitors’ satellite image displays that had looked like patchwork creations.

At that meeting, the question arose about the potential for either Yahoo or Google to purchase Navteq, the mapping company providing these very expensive images. Google’s Thai Tran noted how Navteq’s $5 billion market cap would make the company expensive to purchase; that would be especially true if Navteq held out for a premium price.

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