AOL’s MapQuest has announced the launch of “360 View,” a feature that may remind Google users of Google Maps Street view. For now, it’s available for 30 cities and 13 suburbs in the United States, with more on the way.
“We have studied our industry, gleaning tidbits here and there, and polled our customer base in creating a simple, easy-to-use interface that fits seamlessly into the MapQuest mapping experience you have come to know and understand,” says MapQuest.
You can tell when an area has 360 View coverage when you are zoomed out. It looks something like this:
When searching for specific places, the coverage is presented in a format very similar to Google’s. There is a button for it alongside the the other buttons like “Gas Prices,” “Traffic,” etc., and there is a link to 360 View (when available) in the box that pops up for a specific location.
Once a user is in 360 View mode, they are presented with a side-by-side view of the street-level imagery, and the map imagery. On the 360 View side, users can click on the orange dots to advance their direction, and click and drag the image itself to pan horizontally or vertically. Users can also use the green arrow on the map side to move their view on the other side.
It’s interesting that MapQuest is getting street-level imagery years after its biggest competitor, but better late than never right? In the US, MapQuest still sees a substantial amount of traffic. According to data from Compete, it had over 38 million unique visitors last month.
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