R.I.P. topozone.com

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R.I.P. topozone.com #46367 04/11/08 03:24 AM
Joined: Jan 2003 Posts: 548 St. Louis Alan Member
Alan Member Joined: Jan 2003 Posts: 548 St. Louis	trails.com has bought out the free topographic map site, topozone.com. No longer can you search by location (lat/lon, UTM, etc.) or feature name (mountain, lake, etc.) and find the USGS topographic map for free. trails.com changes $49.95 for an annual subscription, which does give you the subscription-level services that were also available at topozone. What they took away was the free viewing capability and therefore the ability to do screen dumps and build your custom maps for free if you were willing to spend some time with Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, etc. Too bad...it was a great free service and one that I used a lot for planning trips, especially when the route ended up going right through the corners of four adjoining quads. (Boundary Peak is a perfect example. The route from the Queen Canyon Mine goes through three of the four quads that join up just past the Kennedy Pass saddle. They may yet get me to pony up the $50/year...with Scout trips and my own stuff, it may still be worthwhile but I am not a happy camper about it...

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Alan #46371 04/11/08 05:02 AM
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 95 Sacramento CA Joel M. Baldwin Member
Joel M. Baldwin Member Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 95 Sacramento CA	!! what the hell! I think they're getting a LOT of hate mail. geeze whats' the world coming to . . . How many of you are willing to pay $50 a year for this?

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Joel M. Baldwin #46372 04/11/08 05:06 AM
Joined: Jul 2003 Posts: 1,190 Glendale, CA AlanK Member
AlanK Member Joined: Jul 2003 Posts: 1,190 Glendale, CA	Originally Posted By Joel M. Baldwin !! what the hell! I think they're getting a LOT of hate mail. geeze whats' the world coming to . . . How many of you are willing to pay $50 a year for this? How many of us are willing to provide our services for free?

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com AlanK #46374 04/11/08 07:27 AM
Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 95 Sacramento CA Joel M. Baldwin Member
Joel M. Baldwin Member Joined: Feb 2007 Posts: 95 Sacramento CA	Originally Posted By AlanK Originally Posted By Joel M. Baldwin . . . snip . . . How many of you are willing to pay $50 a year for this? How many of us are willing to provide our services for free? It's just fine for them to charge for access, just as it's just fine for me to laugh at their audacity of expecting me to pay them. They're not automatically getting any money from me. Trails.com is now on my list of sites to avoid if at all possible. From my perspective this is a VERY bad PR move on their part. The worst part is their complete lack of a transition. Just BAM the page is gone with no warning. Seriously though, How many of you are willing to $50 a year to trails.com?

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Alan #46376 04/11/08 08:28 AM
Joined: Apr 2005 Posts: 1 skimountaineer Member
skimountaineer Member Joined: Apr 2005 Posts: 1	There is a free Google Earth topo overlay that you could use: http://gisdata.blogspot.com/2007/08/usgs-topo-layer-for-gogole-earth-sweet.html The actual kmz file is here: http://www.gearthblog.com/kmfiles/topomaps.kmz

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Joel M. Baldwin #46377 04/11/08 02:43 PM
Joined: Jul 2003 Posts: 1,190 Glendale, CA AlanK Member
AlanK Member Joined: Jul 2003 Posts: 1,190 Glendale, CA	Originally Posted By Joel M. Baldwin It's just fine for them to charge for access, just as it's just fine for me to laugh at their audacity of expecting me to pay them. Absolutely true! I always find it pleasantly surprising that there are so many free things out there. Given the need to cover ones bills, I am never too surprised when free things go away. But... Originally Posted By Joel M. Baldwin How many of you are willing to $50 a year to trails.com? I'm not. I would pay something, but not $50.

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Joel M. Baldwin #46381 04/11/08 03:50 PM
Joined: Jun 2005 Posts: 750 USA Bob K. Member
Bob K. Member Joined: Jun 2005 Posts: 750 USA	Originally Posted By Joel M. Baldwin I think they're getting a LOT of hate mail. When it's free: stage 1- appreciation stage 2- taken for granted stage 3- criticizing imperfections and when no longer free: stage 4- indignation

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Bob K. #46384 04/11/08 05:30 PM
Joined: Jul 2007 Posts: 42 USA B747 Member
B747 Member Joined: Jul 2007 Posts: 42 USA	You can download free PDFs of any USGS topo map at the USGS site: http://store.usgs.gov/locator/?store_url=http://store.usgs.gov/scripts/wgate/zww20119d47dc/~flNlc3Npb249UFJEOklHU0tBSENJR1NTQVAwMjowMDAxLjAwMjkuYWYxY2ZkMWIuNTZhYyZ Thanks to Rick M for pointing this out on the San Jacinto message board.

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Alan #46386 04/11/08 05:43 PM
Anonymous Unregistered
Anonymous Unregistered	Same thread on SummitPost: http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=36810&sid=e4f6a7d4c62c6cffeeea8735f681fd8a

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com Alan #46387 04/11/08 05:43 PM
Joined: Jan 2007 Posts: 57 TN TwoFortyJeff Member
TwoFortyJeff Member Joined: Jan 2007 Posts: 57 TN	I'd rather spend $99 and get the TOPO! software. Even google maps has decent topo maps for some areas.

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com AlanK #46395 04/11/08 10:03 PM
Joined: Feb 2005 Posts: 186 Beaverton, OR scotthiker2 Member
scotthiker2 Member Joined: Feb 2005 Posts: 186 Beaverton, OR	The service (by topozone.com) was free because they were paying all the bills. Why would they do that? Because they were hoping/praying that someone would come along and buy them out - and their dreams were realized! Their "free use" business model could not last forever. That is the way technology start-ups work, more often than not. Last edited by scotthiker2; 04/11/08 10:09 PM.

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com TwoFortyJeff #46400 04/12/08 12:46 AM
Joined: May 2007 Posts: 8 Las Vegas, Nv. famgeo Member
famgeo Member Joined: May 2007 Posts: 8 Las Vegas, Nv.	If you're going to spend some $, here's another option www.expertgps.com.

Re: R.I.P. topozone.com famgeo #46427 04/12/08 09:41 PM
Joined: Dec 2002 Posts: 354 www.4jeffrey.net AsABat Member
AsABat Member Joined: Dec 2002 Posts: 354 www.4jeffrey.net	I often used Topozone and usually found it awkward. Now it being gone (for us cheapskates) is a good thing as I learned about Acme Mapper, that uses Google as well as USGS topos. mapper.acme.com

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