Website Review: Internet Mapping

Mapping is becoming an ever important tool on the internet tying the virtual world of the web in with the real world. So who is the best? As best is a difficult concept to evaluate scientifically. I shall break it into several categories.

• Ease of use.
• Maps coverage
• Photography coverage
• Maps quality
• Photography coverage
• Extra information provided
• Other features
• Other features coverage

  www.local.live.com
Live local loads reasonably quickly and will either remember where you where looking last time or let you set up a default start position. In terms of ease of use it self explanatory, of all the map sites it is the only one to use the whole screen as the map and thus does let you see more at any one time. There is good global map coverage, the kind you would expect to get in a standard atlas, boarders major towns/cities, etc. However in Western Europe and North America there are very detailed maps down the street level. Aerial photography is global but of low quality, its enough for you to spot out major roads and urban areas but apart from the UK and the U.S.A you will not be able to recognise your house, the new imagery for the UK is excellent and is provided by www.getmapping.com . In remote countries the coverage is lower still. Although this sounds bad it is one of the best in a global sense and you are more likely to find a remote place in Live Local than many other providers. There is a search feature but is limited to towns and countries outside the U.S.A. unless you are able to put in a full address. There is a route finding feature, which works well and even diverts you around heavy traffic. The most interesting aspects are some of the extra images in the U.S.A. and London in the U.K. (although this is expanding by the day) such a birds eye view allowing a isometric view of the cities and street view which provides images from street level.

• Ease of use.   7/10
• Maps coverage  8/10
• Photography coverage 6/10
• Maps quality   7/10
• Photography quality  6/10
• Extra information provided 4/10
• Other features   8/10
• Other features coverage 3/10
• Overall    61% 

  www.maps.google.com
Similar to local live but only about half the screen is used for the map which is wasteful. Maps outside Europe and N. America only show boarders no towns/cities at all. Until recently only the U.K and the U.S.A. where covered. In the coved areas the maps are very high quality. The photograph quality is patchy. Major cities may have excellent images good enough to see the people in the streets; wile the country side has exceptionally poor images. There coverage is global but at very low levels. The search function is powerful and accurate supporting post codes and local businesses. There is an nice zoomed out mini map which allows you to see your position but otherwise no significant features.

• Ease of use.   6/10
• Maps coverage  5/10
• Photography coverage 4/10
• Maps quality   7/10
• Photography quality  4-9/10
• Extra information provided 9/10
• Other features   1/10
• Other features coverage 10/10
• Overall    59%

  www.multimap.com
An older website which doesn’t support the drag and move features of Live and Google. However it does support two maps sizes for fast browsing or better view and uses a good proportion of the screen. Map coverage is good but quality varies from county to county, but 1:50,000 is provided in many places and down to 1:5,000 in major countries. Aerial images are available in UK and a excellent but are unavailable else where. There is a good selection of information on the maps especially in the UK where OS maps are used. There is a limited search feature confined to post codes.

• Ease of use.   7/10
• Maps coverage  7/10
• Photography coverage 2/10
• Maps quality   6/10
• Photography quality  9/10 (in UK)
• Extra information provided 5/10
• Other features   0/10
• Other features coverage 0/10
• Overall    45%

  www.terrasever.com
Terra Sever is based on selling aerial photography and so is not nearly so map friendly. However if the photography exist Terra Sever will have it, at a price. You can zoom in to 8 meter resolution for free but to go in further costs about $10 for a week or $120 for a year. Very little in the way of maps.

• Ease of use.   4/10
• Maps coverage  0/10
• Photography coverage 8/10
• Maps quality   0/10
• Photography quality  8/10
• Extra information provided 0/10
• Other features   0/10
• Other features coverage 0/10
• Overall    25%

  www.mapquest.com
Some degree of maps globally no aerial images, fiddly to use and U.S.A centric

• Ease of use.   1/10
• Maps coverage  8/10
• Photography coverage 0/10
• Maps quality   6/10
• Photography quality  0/10
• Extra information provided 0/10
• Other features   0/10
• Other features coverage 0/10
• Overall    19%

  www.viamichelin.com
Excellent mapping in U.S.A and Western Europe and good maps in the rest of Europe. No global coverage and no aerial photography. Strong search options for addresses but not for business.

• Ease of use.   8/10
• Maps coverage  8/10
• Photography coverage 0/10
• Maps quality   8/10
• Photography quality  0/10
• Extra information provided 6/10
• Other features   0/10
• Other features coverage 0/10
• Overall    39%

Conclusion

Google and Live rule the roost when it comes to general mapping, but there is the odd thing where these smaller providers just pip them. Having said that both Live and Google are improving their coverage constantly and so these small providers cannot hope to keep up much longer. If you want to find the best aerial photography for an area either try http://www.flashearth.com/ which combines Google maps and Live Local.

Vote Result