Yahoo Maps
I’m back with yet another review, today is Yahoo! Maps turn. I have always been very impressed by the Yahoo Maps service, even though it is not my favorite online mapping software, I do think that this service is almost as good as the online mapping applications that Google Maps and Mapquest provide.
Yahoo Maps has been facing a lot of good competition lately, there are lots of companies battling against each other in the online mapping field, companies such as Google, AOL, and Microsoft make it really hard for other services to shine. However Yahoo has enough resources to compete against monsters as big as Google Maps and Mapquest, and they have made their online mapping service better, and that’s the reason why Yahoo! has been able to remain strong in the web mapping game.
Now Yahoo! provides high quality maps and accurate directions, you can also use this web mapping service to perform searches by categories, for example, you can find restaurants, hotels, bars, parks, historical landmarks, shopping centers, etc. After searching for a location, the software will highlight those places through orange icons that have numbers on them.
The Yahoo Maps route planner is very similar to the route building softwares provided by Google Maps, Mapquest, and Bing Maps, you simply have to enter your starting address in A, your ending address in B, click on “Get Directions”, and then wait for the route planner to show you the best route to get to your destination, the route will be displayed on a high quality map, so finding your destination won’t be a problem at all, If you want, you can add multiple stops to your route by clicking on the “add location” link.
If you don’t like traffic jams, you can check live traffic updates on any of your routes, if you think that you’re route has to much traffic and you want to avoid it, then you can simply drag and drop the route line on the map to find an alternate route that has less traffic. Something I’ve always liked about Yahoo Maps is that the travel distance and driving time are always displayed, you can quickly find that information on the left column, right above where the turn by turn driving instructions are displayed.
Yahoo Maps can be printed, saved, or sent by email very easily, you can access the standard version of Y! Maps by simply visiting the site, hybrid and satellite views are available, you can access Hybrid or Satellite view by simply clicking on the “map” icon located at the upper right corner of your screen, when you click on the map icon a drop down menu will show you the two available options, which are Satellite view, Hybrid view, choose one, and you are good to go.
Like most web mapping applications the Yahoo Maps team focuses mainly on two markets, they are the USA and Canada of course, so driving directions and street maps are pretty darn special for these countries, routes are very precise, and the searchable database is quite massive.
Y! Maps has another interesting feature, it’s very similar to Google my maps, it’s called the Address Book, commonly used street addresses by registered Yahoo users will be saved on the address book, these addresses can be easily accessed at any time through a drop down menu on their dashboard.
My favorite feature is Sketch-a-Search, they market this feature as picture your next search, supposedly it is the easiest way to perform searches right now on the web, and it is also available for mobile devices and mobile phones, for example, if you are using an iPhone, you can draw a circle on the map with your finger where you want to search, the software will immediately provide suggestions for local restaurants, hotels, or museums for example, what sketch-a-search does is allow users to outline any area on the map for a certain type of business or category. Right now this feature is strapped to US restaurants and it allows users to access very detailed information like type of cuisine and customer ratings.
Yahoo Maps is now using peak technology in Geo-mapping, Geo-location, and Geo-data, they’ve added a bunch of features and tools that have proven to be very useful, not just for me, many of my friends and family members are using Yahoo driving directions every now and then, and they are loving it! Although Google Maps are the people’s choice, the combination of high quality maps, and a feature rich software make Y! Maps one of the most used online mapping softwares in the world today.
Yahoo Maps is a very nice alternative to services such as Google Maps and Mapquest, they are always adding new features, they are always trying to improve the look and the feel of the site, and their focus on local search has made it a very reliable site when it comes to finding local street maps, and getting driving directions, maps.yahoo.com is considered one of the best online mapping experiences in the world, so I think that you should try it out, and then rate it all by yourself before jumping into conclusions.
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