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Comment by brianmckenzie | Hacker News Reader

Now this is just creepy. I'm lucky enough to live in San Francisco, on one of the streets where this service is already available. I just looked up my address and all I can say is that I'm glad my blinds were closed when the Google truck drove by.

I also find it funny that Google managed to come out with this before anyone else even came out with a viable competitor for Google maps. Damn.

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This: http://searchengineland.com/061229-084131.php

says that Google maps has less than half the marketshare of MapQuest. I'd love to see an article explaining why that is. First mover advantage?

Another thing I found interesting about that article is that Mapquest, Google, and Yahoo are all running off data from the same company, Navteq. You've gotta figure that many of the nav systems in cars probably run off their data as well. The implication here is that if all these services have the same map data, the accuracy of directions is determined by the algorithm used in each of these systems, so Mapquest apparently has the best one.

Personally, there's been a few times that the directions I got from Google were incorrect. Once it told me to turn down a street that wasn't there. I like to goof around with Google Maps, but if I need directions to a place I haven't been before then I use MapQuest. Maybe others have had the same experience.

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