HOT SEAT
Going online for directions has become part of everyday life. Industry leader MapQuest.com serves about 300 million maps a month to 23 million users. But as anyone whoés been steered wrong by a mapping site can attest, the technology behind the sites is far from perfect.
We asked Dave Schafer, general manager of MapQuest-which was acquired by AOL in 2000-what goes into a map site, and why you sometimes canét get there from here.
é Tom McNichol
WIRED: There are scads of online map services. Whatés special about MapQuest?
SCHAFER: Quality is definitely a differentiator. We rely on proprietary data that comes from our 30-year mapping history as well as on data provided by a variety of suppliers.
But online map sites rely on many of the same vendors for geographic and navigation information. So arenét you all packaging and presenting basically the same data?
That doesnét translate into all the maps and directions being the same. There are a lot of factors-from the rules for our geocoding (assigning latitude and longitude coordinates to an address), to routing algorithms, to which vendorés data we use in what area.
MapQuest shows my house to be on the wrong block, and Yahoo! has the same error. It looks like you guys are copying each otherés test paper.
No, no, no, no, you canét draw that conclusion. You canét look at one instance and say all maps and directions are created equal. The accuracy of our maps is our top priority. Period.
OK, so whatés the error rate in your maps and directions?
Less than one-tenth of 1 percent of our 23 million users contact us for any reason, and an even smaller fraction report possible inaccuracies.
You must do some inside testing to determine what your true error rate is.
Well, weére constantly working to improve accuracy. If someone notifies us of an inaccuracy, weéll dissect all the ingredients and get under the hood and correct it or notify the vendor.
How will your business change as we move to an always-connected wireless world?
Weéll be able to tell people whatés around them. If someone turns to their cell phone to find the nearest coffee shop, they might get a coupon for a second latte free.
The proverbial free latte. Did you know MapQuestés Yellow Pages donét recognize-AOLé?
As soon as I finish talking to you, Iéll talk to the Yellow Pages folks to find out why.
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