Transcenic, a company that apparently only the patent office has ever heard of, is suing Google, Microsoft and AOL for patent infringement. ZDNet reports that the patent, granted in 2006, is for a “spacial referenced photographic system with navigation arrangement.” Google Street View, Microsoft Streetside and AOL’s Mapquest all appear to infringe on the patent.

Mapquest has completely redesigned their user interface. AOL-owned Mapquest.com started about 15 years ago and now has a one-box search for directions, maps, and businesses. There is a My Maps feature that lets you save directions using login from OpenID, AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, and Twitter. You can add notes, landmarks, short cuts, and anecdotes. Patch’s directory information is also integrated in MapQuest’s search results. The addition of these new features makes finding directions and landmarks more interesting. I may consider switching from Google Maps as my default maps application.

When you search on Google Maps for restaurants, apartment complexes, bars, etc. you will find reviews on the places that users submit.  MapQuest will be taking a similar approach, but will be powered by Yelp reviews.  Out of the deal, MapQuest gets more local content and Yelp gets more traffic.  It’s a win-win.  Yelp receives a lot of traffic, but their core visitors live and work in Silicon Valley. 

MapQuest will also have sports news integrated into the personalized local version of the map website.  MapQuest has released a BlackBerry-version of the site and will be releasing an iPhone app in the near future.  MapQuest’s personalized local version of the site has received 3.3 million unique visitors thus far.  MapQuest as a whole receives about 48 million unique visitors.

MapQuest Local already aggregates videos from Truveo, news from Topix, Events by CityGuide, weather from WeatherBug, movies from Moviefone, sports from Topix, used car listings from AOL Autos, City’s Best for things to do, classifieds from Zaango, and pictures from Flickr.  Using all these widgets, it’s hard to tell whether the site is actually MapQuest or not.

AOL acquired MapQuest for $1.1 billion in December 1999.  Yelp has raised $31 million since starting in 2004 from Max Levchin, Bessemer Venture Partners, Benchmark Capital, and DAG Ventures.

Just when you thought that there aren’t that many ways you could improve upon a website that gives driving directions, Google has introduced a feature on Google Maps that warns about potential traffic delays. Who would this benefit? Those who commute through big cities. The current cities that the new Google Maps feature support include San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Dallas. This announcement was made official by Google Software Engineer, David Wang on the Google Blog.

How does it work? Below is a screen shot of the real time traffic data of Chicago, IL 5:23PM Central Time. Around this time is rush hour, so that explains why a lot of the routes are marked in red.  This implies that there is a delay in how fast the traffic is going. Users can select or de-select the traffic feature simply by clicking on the ‘Traffic’ button. This feature is also available on certain mobile phones.

How could Google Maps improve from this point? Two ways. First is by integrating this feature into other cities of the U.S. and secondly, imitate MapQuest. MapQuest has a gas price tracker that displays the gas stations that have the highest and lowest prices in any city of the U.S. [screen shot below].

Upon looking at Windows Live Search, I discovered that Microsoft had integrated the traffic feature before Google did.  And on top of that, Windows Live Search also includes under construction data. This is especially useful for those that live in the MidWest. There’s a poor joke that circulates around the MidWest: “There are only two seasons in the MidWest: Winter and construction.”

[Microsoft Virtual Earth Screen Shot displaying construction data]

The intensity of rivalry between driving directions websites only makes life easier for us, the consumer.   Microsoft should also take a page out of the MapQuest book of ideas and integrate a gas tracker feature as well.