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Satellite Imagery on Yahoo! MapsYahoo! held the number two position behind Mapquest.com for a number of years in monthly site traffic. Yahoo's initial map offerings provide a service similar to Mapquest's trip directions. By offering advanced features for members who searched for directions when logged in to their Yahoo! email and other Internet services, Yahoo! was able to maintain significant market share among online travel surfers. Google was able to gain significant market share by incorporating high-resolution satellite imaging into Google Maps application. As a result, Yahoo! Maps has fallen off to number three in market share with 3.2% of U.S. Internet travel viewers visiting the site monthly. -
Hybrid Map View on Yahoo! MapsYahoo! Maps offers three views for the user to view and manipulate the selected map data: 1 - Street Map, 2 - Satellite Image, and 3 - A Hybrid view which overlays the two views. The user starts the Yahoo! Maps process by either requesting directions from one location to another or asking to view a general area. Yahoo! then accesses its map data stores to retrieve the optimized route, map and if required images from the database query from the client computer. The user is able to manipulate the view by moving north, south, east or west, or zooming in or out on the current view. Similar to other mapping services on the Internet, Yahoo! Maps' zoom fidelity is dependent on the metropolitan size of the area being viewed. The imagery on Yahoo! maps is updated on varying intervals dependent on business and marketing factors. The Yahoo! Maps interface allows the user to modify the directions on the map or in text once entered and to send the directions to any email address or phone number. Finally, Yahoo! offers for free its programming interface for Yahoo! Maps (API) to encourage other companies to plug into the Yahoo! Maps information via web services. - In the last year, Yahoo! has begun to regain market share previously lost to Google Maps. In order to continue to expand the use of Yahoo! Maps, additional marketing and use of the Yahoo! Maps API with industry partners through the use of Web Services and Web 2.0 technologies will further embed mapping products into everyday applications. Another area of potential growth for Yahoo! Maps is to incorporate 3D data along with the imagery and street databases already used such as that provided by the X3D Earth research group.
