Did Google Maps's "consistency" help it climb to #1 in maps?

Really? Is the author too young to remember that Google maps was the first company to not do maps horribly?<p>Before google maps, online maps were an insult to the user. You would get a 200px by 200px image of a crappy map surrounded by 10 ads that flashed at you. If you wanted to scroll to the right you had to click an arrow. It would then take about 30 seconds for the map and adds to reload.<p>Google did maps right, and eventually yahoo and map quest followed, but by the time they did it was too late everyone was using google maps and had no reason to switch.

For me, and many I know it was speed. Scroll speed, zoom speed, search speed. Even today GMaps wins in that category.<p>I barely ever use satellite view for anything but casual amusement.

Love the attention to detail and animated visual aids; don't buy the thesis at all.<p>I don't expect feature labels to remain identical between views; the background intensity and purposes of the views are so different it makes sense to change their labeling. For example, there's less room for text if people are looking at the photographic detail between roads. (This also explains why some of Google's competitors move the road labels over roads on satellite views: it is reasonable to assume that people switched to satellite view to see non-road details, which you wouldn't want to obscure with labels.)<p>I also don't rapidly toggle between map and satellite views, and tend to look at the satellite views at a greater zoom than the map views.<p>Once you drop the idea such consistency is optimal, the causality could be the reverse: because the other services are behind in usership, they're being more innovative in optimizing satellite labeling.

Based on the first paragraph, it seems the author already realizes this, but he needs to claim less and show more. His argument:<p>1. The most popular mapping site also has the most consistent satellite/street maps. 2. The inverse is true with the least popular mapping sites. 3. Because there's correlation, there's causation.

I don't really agree with the author's proposal, although it is well explained. As many others pointed out, Google's usability was (and maybe still is) much better than the others.<p>Another big point in Google's favour is how their maps <i>look</i>. Back when Google Maps came out, the other maps were bitmapped and horrible to look at on the screen and in print. The quality of Google's maps is much more like what you see in a proper street directory. And they've made it look that good at every zoom level. Quite amazing.<p>I've never used Bing Maps, so it was interesting to learn in this article that they've improved the design of their default map view recently. It looks good. If the appearance of Google's maps was some part of their success, we should see Bing's market share rise in the future if they can convincingly beat Google in this area.

I bet you most of the users did not notice this difference. What they noticed probably is speed, and the fact that you can scroll and move around the map without clicking the side arrows (mapquest style).

Hate to be contrarian, but I actually agree with the author. It's often a collection of little things like this that puts one site over another.

Looking through all the comparisons, Google Maps is also the only non-ugly one.

I would actually like to see one of them have an updated ariel view of some rural areas. Something in the last 5 years would be nice.

Remember he is not saying consistency is the <i>only</i> feature that make GoogleMaps #1

I use google maps because it has the most usability IMHO.

Google maps won because they provide accurate directions and maps in a really simple, clean, fast interface. Competing products have caught up quite a bit, but I still cant bring myself to go to mapquest because of how much it used to suck.<p>I don't think most people switch to satellite view, or care if those views are consistent.