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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#341

Post by 0xcoffee »

sverhagen wrote: post #329
whazor wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Netherlands. Google Maps has recently become worse and worse. Small pedestrian roads are missing, and the navigation is getting stupid. Google applies the one-way limitations for cars also on cycling routes.

I don't disagree that Maps lacks a lot of smarts. Sometimes I ponder back to years ago, thinking my TomTom then worked better already than Maps now. But just to be clear, a one way road is still a one way road if you're a bicyclist, unless exceptions are specifically indicated on the traffic signs, no?

Pretty much every one way street in The Netherlands looks like this: http://www.trueamsterdam.com/wp-content/uploads/uitgezonderd...

To find a one-way street that applies to cyclists would be an exception.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#342

Post by retSava »

sytelus wrote: post #142

Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. I would actually give lot of credit to Marissa Mayer who suddenly became in charge of maps from otherwise more higher position. Thanks to her influence in Google SLT and ability to make impressive arguments, she was able to make a case for maps as core pillar in Google's offering and consequently obtain huge investment and large tal…

I did a small comparison of a few web services: https://imgur.com/a/4WEJ4

I grew annoyed at Google maps. It didn't show street names and numbers, and overall little detail, meaning that even if I (with GPS) easily found my location, it was hard to orient myself, and discover things around me. Things like "I know ABC is close to XYZ, I just need to find it by looking around XYZ" is really hard.

edit: and by small, I mean small. Nothing like the TFA, but grounded in a Swedish suburb (50k inhabitants), which is more meaningful to me. Also, I didn't have an apple-device at the time so no Apple maps included.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#343

Post by HenryBemis »

whazor wrote: post #298
aluhut wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for OpenStreetMaps here? In Germany it is often superior to everything out there. Especially due to the mappers/updaters motivation and nice gamification tools like StreetComplete or more professional tools like Vespucci. https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Vespucci

Same in Netherlands. Google Maps has recently become worse and worse. Small pedestrian roads are missing, and the navigation is getting stupid. Google applies the one-way limitations for cars also on cycling routes.

Same here, I've been using Google Maps in Northern Europe (in many countries) and does get worse every quarter). Perhaps there is a massive focus on the US-side.

WAG: is Google preparing to be Amazon's drones mapping service that thy care so munch to even know each and every building/caravan is?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#344

Post by craigds »

scooter_de wrote: post #126

The problem of "under addressed" places in the world is addressed (no pun intended) by several companies. Eg. What3Words (w3w.co) has created a grit of 3mx3m squares which cover the entire planet. Each of this squares is identified by three words. Post/Mail organizations in several countries already accept those addresses. Google also has the OLC (Open Location Code) to address an area of adjustable size on earth. I…

Is it really more convenient? Coordinates make sense to everyone and every map tool can understand them. W3W phrases are useless unless you happen to have the app.

Also, there are a few amusing clones... http://www.what3fucks.com/

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#346

Post by lucideer »

joshvm wrote: post #320
lucideer wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. Really have to chime in here to echo other comments - this statement is astounding. Given the resources that have been available to them, and the time they've spent on developing their platform and data, it's amazing how bad Google maps is compared to everything else. Google Street View has unparalleled photographic data, and thei…

3D extrusion of satellite data is nice in some cases - have a look at some of the more interesting remote islands. In most cases though it's significantly degraded the quality of the photo maps because the imagery is warped and has artifacts all over it, even in 2D. If you want a real map, then Bing is the best solution in the UK because they partnered with the Ordnance Survey. OS maps are the civilian gold standard.

Are Bing partnered with OS or are they just using their data because it's open[0]?

[0] https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/pro...

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#347

Post by toyg »

gaius wrote: post #316
toyg wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that Google usually spearheads a field, whereas Microsoft does that when they are catching up with existing leaders. One technique advances state of the art, the other leverages a monopoly to gain commercial advantages. "Regulators" only got involved with browsers, once. You can't use that as an excuse for all the subsequent blunders by MS management. Their big tech bet was tablets and PDAs and they…

The difference is that Google usually spearheads a field, whereas Microsoft does that when they are catching up with existing leaders In what way? Google didn't invent search, mail, banner ads... nor maps.

Google Maps was leaps and bounds better than anything in the mapping space at the time.

Google Mail was leaps and bounds better than anything in the webmail space at the time (more space, better spam filter, better UI, imap support...).

The pagerank intuition (and the technical way of achieving it, with clusters of cheap PCs) was original in search at the time, which is how they built their lead.

Ads they mostly got from the Doubleclick acquisition, but the intuition of serving more palatable text ads on a mass scale was original.

Android they acquired, but the intuition of keeping it opensource was original in embedded systems at the time.

Whereas MS Office was just another office suite. Xbox was just another console. Windows CE was a hacked-down Windows that struggled vs real mobile systems. .Net was a Java clone. Bing was a Google clone. IIS was a clone of existing webapp servers, with the only advantage being that it came preinstalled. SQLServer they acquired and made it slightly easier to use than competitors. After Windows, IE was probably the only major project where they innovated substantially, and they let it die.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#348

Post by LukaCEnzo »

tigershark wrote: post #339
rplnt wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I explicitly said it's for one specific country...

Then it's true that google maps is much better. I don't really care about having only one country better when all the rest of the planet is less detailed...

It's used mostly in and for Czechia. Why would someone in Czechia care about the rest of the globe when he'll mostly use it to find stuff in Czechia?

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#349

Post by notrly »

sytelus wrote: post #142

Many people don't realize why Google maps are so much better than anything out there. I would actually give lot of credit to Marissa Mayer who suddenly became in charge of maps from otherwise more higher position. Thanks to her influence in Google SLT and ability to make impressive arguments, she was able to make a case for maps as core pillar in Google's offering and consequently obtain huge investment and large tal…

What I don't realize is how Waze, owned by Google, has more roads (like 50% more, easily) and has house numbers compared to google maps, which has no house numbers and barely any roads, here in Lithuania.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#350

Post by [deleted] »

patrickdavey wrote: post #331
tigershark wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time that I checked google maps was vastly superior in all the aspects.

Absolutely not. I used osm all last year while travelling. The fact you can download offline an entire country worth of data beats the hell out of Google Maps' offline mode. Also the searching by category is brilliant.

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