• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, August 9, 2005

Men may not stop and ask, but according to a recent Hitwise study,  49.1 percent of visitors to mapping Web sites were male for the four-week period ending July 16, 2005.

 "Researching directions on the Web before a drive is a different context than asking for directions once you're on the road and lost," said Bill Tancer, General Manager, Worldwide Research, Hitwise. "However, the equal propensity of men to use Internet mapping services represents not only an important demographic attribute for marketers and mapping services, but insight into the potential demand and adoption for mapping and driving direction services".

 More information for the week ending July 23, 2005 includes such thing as:

• Yahoo! Maps and AOL's MapQuest dominate the online mapping category, with a combined category market share of 74.4 percent
• Google Maps has become the third most popular map site since its launch in early 2005, and now claims 9.5 percent of visits to the category.  
• Only 11.3 percent of Google Maps visitors departed directly for another map site, down from 17.6 percent in April 2005.
• In the entire mapping category, 5.8 percent of visitors depart directly to a competing map site.
• 57 percent of visits to sites in the Travel/Maps category originated at a portal site or a search engine.
• The term "mapquest" was the second most popular term (behind "ebay") entered into all major Internet search engines (for the four weeks ending July 23, 2005.)
• The term "maps" was number five and "driving directions" was number 18.
• Visits to online map sites peak in the summer months, notes the report. The market share of visits to map sites increased 35 percent in June 2004 versus December 2004. A category with a similar seasonal pattern is Travel/Destinations & Accommodation, which increased 95 percent in the same time period. Sites in this category include motels, amusement parks, and National Parks, which vacationers typically reach by car. 

  Please visit Hitwise for more information.