This past weekend we took a trip to Wegmans supermarket in Bridgwater, NJ.  Beforehand, I looked up the address from Google maps.  It seemed easy enough. It was just a few minutes north of the mall.  As we were driving near where it's supposed to be, it didn't look like an area where we would find a supermarket.  Nonetheless, we kept going for another few minutes. Still no wegmans. So I pulled to the side of the road and called them up for directions. Turns out it's south of the mall, not north, as the map has it.

This is actually not the first time I've been led astray by Google maps. There's been at least 2 or 3 other times where it's given me incorrect locations. Out of curiosity, I searched for the same wegmans using the other mapping services, including Yahoo, MSN, Mapquest, and AAA. All of them gave the incorrect location except for Yahoo. That actually didn't surprise me, as in the previous times where I've gotten bad maps from Google, I've also searched on Yahoo afterwards and found that it gave me the correct location.

So why did I still use Google maps after I've been burned before? Because I'm lazy. It's only a click away from Google and Gmail.

Here's my overview of the popular mapping services:

• Yahoo - Best accuracy. Pretty looking maps. Best labels, includes county names.
• Google - Great fast simple interface. Street view. Better user draggable routes implementation.
• MSN  - Pretty good looking maps. Unique bird's eye view (IMO much more useful than Google's street view).
• AAA - Has AAA-only point-of-interests, including AAA ratings for lodgings. Can create TripTiks. Interface a little clunkier.
• Mapquest - Used to be the best, but now other services has better features.