Los Angeles — Found an error on MapQuest? Well, you now have the opportunity to fix it. The AOL subsidiary, making a rebirth tour last weekend harnessing the wealth of OpenStreetMap data, the innovator of online mapping from the 1990s launched a separate website that empowers users to correct factual errors, identify previously unmarked or newly added streets and destinations as well as define the best directions that real drivers know, and otherwise improve the mapped world around them.
This was anticipated, since the online mapping service provider MapQuest recently appointed Hurricane Coast to manage its $1 million open-source mapping investment fund in the United States. Now teaming with OpenStreetMap, MapQuest has unfolded a world where maps are editable by thousands of contributors, making for something akin to Wikipedia of maps.
MapQuest wrote on their blog: “After the successful introduction of 10 open-sourced maps in Europe and Asia in association with OpenStreetMap (OSM), MapQuest is proud to launch its U.S. site situated at Open.Mapquest.com. The new site empowers consumers to enrich MapQuest open map data by adding rich content such as tourism attractions, footpaths, new businesses or developments, and biking or hiking trails.
MapQuest Open was formulated to create richer data for the company’s service by empowering users to include localized information such as biking or hiking trails, tourism attractions, footpaths and new businesses. Map updates sync every 15 minutes and can be incorporated into directions in under 24 hours, according to a company release.
“The launch of MapQuest’s open site is as important as it enables all MapQuest users to play an active role in improving the depth and quality of the map,” Christian Dwyer, senior vice president and general manager, MapQuest, said in a statement.
This partnership makes it a “living map,”, MapQuest says, constantly enhanced by contributors who can add content and details that make the map more special and useful.
Today, having more than 320,000 registered OpenStreetMap users around the globe, including a growing U.S. occurrence in urban locations such as San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Denver, the mapping innovator is once again gaining its visitor numbers — the service accomplished more than 44 million users in November 2010, according to comScore Media Metrix.
“The average MapQuest user is getting maps and directions within 25 miles of home or work, and the open site employs a “neighborhood watch” concept, encouraging individuals to take ownership of their localities and make the map reflective of the world around them,” Dwyer added.
If there was any way MapQuest could individualized itself from the seemingly ubiquitous Google Maps, this is a pretty good stab at it. OpenStreetMap data has been used on projects in other countries for some time now, when it launched modifiable mapping sites in the UK, and since September also in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, and has recently also expanded to Asia.
For MapQuest, the move to launch the open-source mapping site in the U.S. is a clear attempt to distinguish its service from Google Maps, which has been stealing away users for years. The geo-socialization and humanizing of MapQuest through crowd-sourcing and other methods could be just the right direction for a pioneer trekking a long and winding path leading to this big change.
Click here to check out the new site.