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Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

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Re: Google Maps' Moat

#411

Post by ikurei »

Freak_NL wrote: post #327
aluhut wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it frequently. It's not. Especially regarding updating businesses, small roads (and road quality), paths, opening hours, closed roads&paths/construction sites, bike maps, everything regarding detailed information basically. I have been adding bus stop markers for blind people or types of pedestrian crossings, recycling containers, street light, to OSM with StreetComplete. There is so much more there. Next time,…

Or, if OpenStreetMap is lacking in your local area, help out! OpenStreetMap thrives when local mappers are involved. Compare this section of a Dutch city: Google: https://www.google.nl/maps/@53.1983621,5.767509,16z?hl=nl OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/53.1986/5.7679 Apple: (I guess Apple maps can't be linked to on the web?) It also helps a lot if your government can be persuaded to open up their…

Notice that although it looks like Google doesn't have buildings in those links, they do. You just have to zoom in a bit for them to appear.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#412

Post by gbbr »

This is a very interesting read. But it’s so frustratingly long. It’s like “where are you going with this”. It’s as frustrating as interesting it is. What a unique combo.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#413

Post by nol13 »

Intermernet wrote: post #391
gaius wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVERYTHING Google does is "how to show more ads". I pity the poor AI they develop because that will be its job in life. Until it rebels of course. Then humanity's fate will be richly deserved.

Do you include their cloud platform in that? GAE, GCE, GKE etc? They don't really exist to show more ads, and they're becoming a larger part of their profit every year. What about their open source stuff? Kubernetes, Go etc? I'll readily admit that advertising is still their primary source of revenue, but painting Google as a purely advertising company is getting less accurate every year

Well what do you think people are running on all those GCE instances?

Websites that show ads, of course!

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#414

Post by amelius »

Aren't building-footprints easy to add using complementary data, such as satellite view and/or street addresses?

Perhaps it could be a nice ML project: turning map data + satellite data into fuller looking map data.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#415

Post by anc84 »

cjensen wrote: post #120

Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Bing Maps will all try to murder you if you ask for directions from Santa Maria, CA to Ventura, CA. The obvious route is to follow the freeway that was built on the best route between the two cities. Instead, all three really enjoy routing you onto a two-lane twisty mountain road that is five minutes shorter if you are driving a sports car and all the lights are green. Heaven help you if…

Do you mean you would prefer the 101 route? That's what both Google, Bing as well as all OSM routers I tried suggested. https://i.imgur.com/vIWC5ti.png

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#416

Post by Ygg2 »

aluhut wrote: post #292
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…

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

I've seen lot of data on OpenStreetMaps that is:

A) Wrong/Outdated/Missing

B) Just plain Vandalism

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#417

Post by LoSboccacc »

HenryBemis wrote: post #343
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.

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?

I offer a different point of view from southern europe: during the crisis, 2008-2015, investment on infrastructure was very little and we hardly ever added new roads, especially large projects.

Now that there’s some money floating around again for a couple years, mew bridges and joins and larger road works look more common everywhere.

From here it looks like that google mapping quality is more or less the same, but the rate of change of the urban landscape increased leaving a larger gap between actual and mapped.

(That is for maps alone, street view is extremely outdated across all Italy)

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#418

Post by bob_roboto »

ctz wrote: post #364

The cartography is pretty good. But I'm convinced nobody who works for Google does actually use Google Maps. The quality of the software and the user experience is terrible and notably worse than ten years ago. Example 1: I had a saved route map from a long while ago. Google Maps can no longer load that map -- it is quietly truncated to the first 10 stops. Given the lack of support, Google apparently doesn't care abo…

There is so many more examples. Also hardly any of the links in the web version have an URL behind them, so you can't just open them in a new tab when researching something. Arguably one of the core use cases of a map application.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#419

Post by londons_explore »

angch wrote: post #163
londons_explore wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need aerial imagery from different angles. Thats surprisingly hard to buy from imagery providers, because most of them only want to point their cameras directly downwards.

They fly their own planes these days. https://blog.google/topics/inside-google/google-earths-incre... Too bad it's a video. Fast forward about 2 minutes. Or: https://youtu.be/suo_aUTUpps?t=121 Fly plane. Zig zag. 5 cameras, then photogrammetry. StreetView, from planes.

Not really effective for non-urban areas.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#420

Post by bokstavkjeks »

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...

I'd guess that 80% of my Google Maps use is within one country, and that 99% is within three countries. I'd definitely download separate maps for each country to get better directions and maps.
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