Once the dominant mapping site, the decline of Mapquest is a story of disruptive competition and corporate complacency
Earlier this week Mapquest was sold by corporate parent Verizon to System1, an ad-tech company you’ve probably never heard of for an undisclosed amount, which was “not material enough for Verizon to file paperwork.” That’s a metaphor for how far Mapquest has fallen since its heyday as the dominant online mapping site roughly a decade or so ago.
Mapquest’s long history
Some people reading this may not even be aware that Mapquest still exists. It obviously does and still claims, remarkably, 38 million monthly users (which could be overstated). By comparison, Google Maps has more than a billion users globally according to the company. Verizon ended up with Mapquest as part of its AOL acquisition in 2015.
Since its acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo (in 2016), Verizon has made several mapping-related acquisitions and investments in Mapquest, intended to bolster and potentially reinvigorate the company. However, in the end, it was apparently deemed expendable.
The predecessor to Mapquest was founded as the mapping division of R.R. Donnelley in the late 1960s. After considerable evolution over a period of years, it was spun out in the mid-1990s under the leadership of Perry Evans and Simon Greenman, among others. In 1999, the company went public but was acquired in an all stock transaction by AOL for $1.1 billion in 2000.
At the time it was an extremely valuable addition to AOL’s growing local search and advertising portfolio. AOL was then the internet’s dominant company, a position Google occupies today.....MUCH MORE
The arrival of Google Maps
The beginning of Mapquest’s long, slow decline effectively started after Google’s acquisition of Australian navigation company Where 2 Technologies in 2004. That became the foundation of Google Maps, which launched in 2005. Google Maps was more interactive and “draggable,” which provided a kind of “wow” factor that Mapquest didn’t have. Google also envisioned Maps as a searchable database of locations, which made it more useful than Mapquest, which was mostly about getting driving directions....
Reminding one of a story from Boy Genius Report last April:
Google wants to start making more money from Maps, and we all know what that means
