WTOP: Digital Maps Going Beyond the Roads

By ANICK JESDANUN
AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - You can pull up satellite and aerial images, discover neighborhood jazz clubs and check the latest traffic conditions. You can even get some rail schedules and, hopefully one day, tips on foot and bike trails through parks.

Digital maps produce so much more than driving directions these days.

And as features get added, mapping companies are having to build better technologies and find better sources of data _ including their own users.

Microsoft Corp. is working on a mechanism that would have avid mountain bikers, for example, collectively plot good trails. Yahoo Inc. is appealing to its users to add information on local businesses and places of interest. Yahoo even recently bought Upcoming.org, a collaborative calendar of events.

"More and more data has to become available to provide these kinds of great offerings," said Jeremy Kreitler, Yahoo's senior product manager for maps. "These kinds of information will come from people around local areas contributing."

Online mapping is hot and highly competitive. Nielsen/NetRatings recorded a 28 percent jump in visitors this year, with one-third of Web users visiting at least one mapping site in November.

Microsoft, Yahoo, MapQuest and Google Inc. get their primary data from two companies, Navteq Corp. and Tele Atlas NV, both of which have been aggressively canvassing the nation's highways and byways to keep their databases complete and accurate.

Data companies are typically paid for each map consumers generate. Christian Dwyer, MapQuest's director of operations, estimates that driving directions cost his company a penny apiece and a static map much less _ expenses recouped through sales of ads displayed at the site.

To set themselves apart, mapping providers must decide individually which of the various attributes provided by Navteq and Tele Atlas to emphasize: Is speed limit more important than distance? Would it make sense to take a highway for just one exit?

MapQuest, for instance, assigns scores to various route alternatives based on number of turns, distance and other factors and, unless you tell its software engine to avoid all highways, it presents the route with the lowest score.

Mapping companies also must decide how much information to provide. Zoom out, and data on local streets only clutter the map even if the information is readily available.

Yahoo employs consumer focus groups to help it figure out the proper balance. It also dispatches motorist guinea pigs onto the road with driving directions, while employees tag along and watch how they fare.

"This is where it's more art than science," Kreitler said.

The basics have changed little since MapQuest's site opened nearly a decade ago, on Feb. 5, 1996. Where mapping providers differentiate themselves, then, is in the distinct features they offer.

Yahoo provides information on subway stations and is testing multiple-point directions, in case someone wants to stop off to buy a gift on the way to a friend's. Yahoo, along with Microsoft, also provides real-time traffic information for some cities.

Google and Microsoft have satellite imagery from private and government sources. Microsoft also is testing aerial, bird's-eye-view images and is working to create 3-D maps over Web browsers (Google does these through free software called Google Earth.)

The mapping providers also are working to get their products on mobile devices. And to make their services more useful, they've been merging maps with data on local businesses like shops, restaurants and theaters.

All this will require data well beyond what Navteq and Tele Atlas alone can provide.

Microsoft already has bought aerial images from a company called Pictometry International Corp., which provides bird's eye views, taken at 45 degree angles from four directions. As well, Microsoft is shopping around for altitude data required to create models of city buildings in 3-D.

And as Microsoft tries to fill in coverage gaps outside North America and Western Europe, it is looking for potential vendors in China, Japan and other countries, said Tom Bailey, director of marketing for Microsoft's mapping products.

Beyond that, there's talk of making maps friendlier to those who don't drive.

Google recently unveiled a prototype of its Transit Trip Planner. The tool checks bus and subway schedules for Portland, Ore., to plot the best itinerary. Google promises to add other cities, but offers no timetable.

Expanding the planner nationwide will be tough, though.

MapQuest, which Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit bought in 2000, has considered such an offering for five years but has yet to assemble all the required subway, bus, train and taxi data or develop the right software to make sense of them all, said James Greiner, MapQuest's director of marketing.

Also a big challenge is creating directions for walking or biking. Even though the services are extending their offerings to wireless devices, mobile maps are geared toward driving.

It's simple to tell the computer that it's OK to travel both directions along a one-way street and to avoid highways; more difficult is programming the fact that you can cut through a park or along a path that may connect two dead-end streets.

But engineers still have much work to do on just the driving directions, said Bret Taylor, who oversees Google's mapping products.

For instance, exit numbers are important in some regions, but not in California, where they have been introduced gradually, Taylor said. The challenge, he said, is to figure out what's important where and to tailor directions accordingly.

"Our long-term goal is to have our product give directions that are as good as the taxi driver," he said. "Certainly it's not there yet."

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Anick Jesdanun can be reached at netwriter(at)ap.org

(Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)