After five years, Mapquest.com has redesigned its website and added features for those of us still using printed maps. (What is this “paper” substance you speak of?)
Once the king of online mapping, Mapquest now loses out to Google Maps by 49.1 million unique visitors to Google’s 63.3 million. It hopes to reclaim some of this traffic with a cleaner, less cluttered look that displaces some of the boxy ads and old-school fonts.
More importantly, Mapquest is loading on the features. You can drag to change routes, enter intersections or landmarks rather than addresses, and if you misspell a word, it will figure out what you mean most of the time.
A partnership with Patch provides news and event information for select metropolitan areas, and users can make a reservation at a restaurant through OpenTable. My Maps allows users to share routes on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, while making notes about trips, which the company says can be used as a travel diary.
Check out the refurbished site, in beta format, at new.mapquest.com. The beta period will go through August, when the new Mapquest becomes the default site.
