Final 12 months, I wrote about MapQuest, and offered the corporate’s story as one which was essentially modified by a poor choice—AOL’s buy of the corporate, which solely accomplished after the tech IPO bubble burst.
AOL, like its merger associate Time Warner, was a frequent goal for acquisition. However not like the fashionable day Warner Bros. Discovery, it misplaced cachet each time an acquirer swooped in to choose it up. And that left corporations like MapQuest to languish in a tradition that merely was too huge to know what was truly occurring.
However MapQuest, as I famous on the finish of that piece, appeared to land within the good scenario: In 2019, it was acquired by an organization that really made sense for it, the StartPage proprietor System1. Verizon primarily gave them the corporate free of charge, and System1 responded by truly making the corporate one thing of a viable participant. It simply wanted one thing to place a bit of gasoline in its engine.
Final 12 months, the Trump administration gave them a primary PR alternative by renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” which MapQuest dealt with by letting you rename the gulf your self. And final week, because the president tried the identical trick on Lake Ontario, MapQuest repeated the trick—which stood out all of the extra as a result of Google, and later Apple, selected to acquiesce.
These corporations have one thing to lose in the event that they make Trump mad. System1, and by extension MapQuest, doesn’t. And audiences responded by making MapQuest the most popular app within the App Retailer for the primary time ever.
It certain appears like MapQuest was prepared for its close-up.
I’ve coated plenty of corporations in my time, and I can identify on one hand the variety of instances a stodgy expertise agency was successfully on the brink of obsolescence solely to drag off a whole cultural comeback. (Apple is, famously, one. Thanks, Dr. Gil Amelio.)
MapQuest wasn’t on my bingo card. Nevertheless it displays an inherent flexibility that corporations who aren’t on the highest of the tech world have, particularly in the event that they don’t promote bodily merchandise. Corporations like Mozilla and DuckDuckGo merely have extra room to get savvy as tech giants discover themselves on the mercy of a transactional presidency. However that extends past political; for instance, Mozilla earned plaudits for publicly stating that it will proceed to assist the favored ad-blocking extension uBlock Origin, which Google seemingly upgraded its extension platform to disable. It’s a good time for simple wins for those who lead a mature tech firm.
That mentioned, the laborious half for MapQuest will probably be sticking the touchdown. Whereas the app is prepared for prime time, it lacks sure options that many customers take with no consideration. For instance, if you wish to take the bus, MapQuest doesn’t have in-depth mass transit integration like Google or Apple’s choices do. And good luck utilizing it to e-book an Uber.
But when this sudden second on the high of the information cycle turns into one thing lasting, it’d simply give the legacy map supplier a possibility to fill these gaps whereas constructing a lane for itself. (The corporate has already pledged so as to add Android Auto assist.)
At a broader stage, MapQuest’s story provides a template for different legacy tech corporations to make a modern-day comeback. MySpace’s present homeowners, Tim and Chris Vanderhook, have already made a latest case for a social media “antidote” play. And a minimum of some gamers, like Flickr, have discovered methods to stay round, even with declining relevance.
However there’s an actual threat that the revival may find yourself being like what’s presently occurring to Digg. That firm, relaunched with a lot fanfare by Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian, needed to pivot simply months after its relaunch, because it turned clear the area was too straightforward a goal for spammers. The web site is now greatest described as a Techmeme for AI bros. That appears like a reasonably easy-to-ignore mannequin.
It gained’t work for each previous firm with a dusty server, however the play is evident: Place your self as an antidote to the damaging components of recent tech tradition, after which place your advertising and marketing to use that place. That requires sensible planning and a willingness to satisfy the second, even when it means being divisive or stepping on toes to succeed in that second.
It additionally most likely requires a brass abdomen, as a result of it may well go unhealthy fairly simply. However I suppose I’m optimistic that MapQuest goes to begin a pattern the place mid-sized tech corporations abruptly uncover the spine that was there all alongside.
The primary challenge of Boxed Information, my new mini PC e-newsletter, landed yesterday with out a hitch, and issues are off to an excellent begin. Wanna assist a brand new e-newsletter constructed from the bottom up? Enroll right here.
There’s no cause in any respect to present the NES a CD add-on. Particularly in 2026. However I ain’t gonna lie, seeing this venture gave me a sure sense of pleasure, particularly because it makes use of the beforehand vestigial NES growth port. (We love vestigial options round these components.) Phrase of warning that the video is meandering as all get-out however the consequence makes it well worth the dig.
We even have a number of movies within the subgenre of “online game consoles doing issues they shouldn’t have the ability to do” this week. Apparently it’s doable to run Mac OS X Tiger on an Xbox 360, whose processor is successfully a PowerPC G5 minus a few options. If you happen to really feel like following on this dude’s footsteps, right here’s the GitHub venture.
New social community alert: One of many extra fascinating pitches that landed in my inbox this week was for Innie, a MySpace-esque social platform that focuses on design, avoids profile footage, and guarantees feeds that don’t go on eternally.
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