[mryall]

I don't really agree with the author's proposal, although it is well explained. As many others pointed out, Google's usability was (and maybe still is) much better than the others.

Another big point in Google's favour is how their maps look. Back when Google Maps came out, the other maps were bitmapped and horrible to look at on the screen and in print. The quality of Google's maps is much more like what you see in a proper street directory. And they've made it look that good at every zoom level. Quite amazing.

I've never used Bing Maps, so it was interesting to learn in this article that they've improved the design of their default map view recently. It looks good. If the appearance of Google's maps was some part of their success, we should see Bing's market share rise in the future if they can convincingly beat Google in this area.

[contextfree]

Bing Maps does a lot of cool stuff but always feels perpetually in beta to me (and not in the way that Gmail used to always be in beta). The end-to-end UX is never quite all there.