Yahoo to shut down its Maps site

[DTComposer]

http://www.cnet.com/news/yahoo-to-shut-down-its-maps-site/

I had rarely used Yahoo maps in years, but I had started to write a comparison of Google vs. Bing vs. Apple vs. Mapquest vs. Yahoo, and I was finding that there was a lot to like with Yahoo, especially in their clarity and use of color.

[bandit957]

Yahoo has maps? Who knew?

Who even uses Yahoo these days? What is this, 1998?

[Pete from Boston]

I'd better log in to my Geocities site and update the links.

A lot of people do still use Yahoo email, and Flickr is Yahoo, so there's that.

[admtrap]

Rather disappointing, as I used them just the other day from my PC.  I wanted to find out the driving time estimate difference between a mostly toll road and a completely no-toll routing.  The Goog would not let me "Avoid Tolls" under any circumstances. 

[jeffandnicole]

On my personal homepage, I have the Yahoo search engine built right in.  But more and more often, I'm finding the results to be a bit off-the-mark, where as the same searches in Google get me exactly where I'm trying to go to. 

I've used Yahoo Maps occasions, but overall preferred Google.  The 'avoid tolls' is a nice feature, even if I use it more for amusement than anything.

[kkt]

I'd better log in to my Geocities site and update the links.

[Henry]

Who even uses Yahoo these days? What is this, 1998?

I still do!

[Mileage Mike]

I didn't even know they had Maps. I check out their Yahoo News regularly though.

[theline]

ATT.net mail is Yahoo mail. My ISP is ATT U-verse, so the email addresses furnished by them are with Yahoo. I use it regularly, and so does my wife.

I also use the Yahoo toolbar and Yahoo bookmarks, believe it or not. They are clunky, but I can easily get the same set of bookmarks and buttons on multiple computers.

Having said that, I've not used Yahoo Maps for a very long time.

[SignGeek101]

I guess everyone's been using the new Google maps... 

[Zzonkmiles]

I never even knew Yahoo HAD a maps service. Oh well.

Now they need to do something about their spammy mail and their antiquated message board layout.

[Pete from Boston]

Yahoo Maps was a big deal before anyone imagined a dull search site like Google would ever have its own map service (or anything else beyond plain old search).  It was at some point powered by Mapquest–no idea if this is still the case–which itself may or may not have been offering its own site at the time.

You have to remember that in those days Yahoo was sort of the catch-all starting point for a lot of web users.  In a pattern that Google would follow, it created (or, increasingly, bought) services so that people jumping off from it would not need to leave for other sites.

I am sure if one dug around MTR archives from around 2000 they'd find links to Yahoo maps. 

When Google Maps first came out, its cartography and smoothness were a clear step above Yahoo and/or Mapquest.  Those services kept on as viable a while longer, but just like happened with Gmail, Google's steadily moved into the gold standard position.

[vdeane]

I knew about Yahoo Maps only because of CHM including it in the Highway Browser.  Just visited their site today.  It's a shame they're going; their directions feature actually allowed for more shaping points than Google now does!

[empirestate]

Yahoo Maps is just Here maps (ex-Nokia), which is still very much around; it also figures into Bing maps and has absorbed Navtech. So while Yahoo was one of the old "big three" of online mapping (Mapquest, Yahoo, Google), in many ways it still is (Google, Here, Mapquest).

[hbelkins]

Yahoo has maps? Who knew?

Who even uses Yahoo these days? What is this, 1998?

What I don't understand is the decline of Yahoo Messenger in favor of phone-only IM services like Kik. What can Kik do that Yahoo Messenger can't? And you can't run Kik from a desktop the way you can with Yahoo.

[Scott5114]

If none of your friends use Yahoo Messenger, you won't either. If your friends use Kik, that's what you'll use.