There are ample rumors online that AOL will sell MapQuest as part of the Time Warner and AOL split that will take place in less than a month. You may recall that AOL paid $1 Billion for MapQuest back in 1999 as one of the early indications that Internet technologies meant big business, and a move that placed mapping squarely into the minds of Internet entrepreneurs. Ten years later, MapQuest has faded behind the mapping efforts of Google and Microsoft, but the site still garners more 40 million users per month.

CNET speculates that Microsoft is a possible buyer given their competition with Google. While it might make sense for the data providers to take charge, it doesn’t seem likely that Nokia or Tom Tom would make the leap as they’ve seen their stocks devalue with their mapping acquisitions. Garmin might want to jump in here as they’re seeing a serious erosion of the personal navigation device market with Google offering free navigation on a variety of mobile platforms, and the purchase would give them an opportunity to transition with an established revenue stream based on ad sales.

Owning the online map navigation piece, and the backend software development tools to enable map mashups might also be a play for a geospatial software vendor. While MapQuest is synonymous with navigation, it also has a good software development kit for enterprise-scale mashups. Couldn’t this be an opportunity for a geospatial software company to gain a further toehold in the enterprise space, while also raising greater awareness by average consumers?

At this point the sale is speculative, but likely. AOL is laying off a third of their workforce as they move to go independent. They’re focusing more on content and advertising rather than the service that MapQuest provides, and they clearly don’t have the will or the resources to go head-to-head with Google or Microsoft. What happens to MapQuest will be an interesting story to follow in the ever-evolving market of location-based services.

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