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The New Google Maps

maps.google.com

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Re: The New Google Maps

#151
post #91

"Request an invite". Dear god, Google still thinking it's a cute little startup. It really is the Microsoft story all over again.

It could be worse, they did the same thing with Glass but then charged $1500 for the benefit of being chosen. That said, I think it makes sense. Ask Apple how it feels to make a drastic change with maps.

Glass is hardware, it's not like they're going to give it away for free.

Re: The New Google Maps

#152
post #73

Google map was the one of the first web applications that revolutionized the web with Ajax. This new Google map could be another one that revolutionize the industry again with WebGL.

Two years ago they had an experimental version of Maps that used WebGL and was much smoother than the current one, but they removed it for some reason: https://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

Can't try the current one ("request an invite") but I used the experimental version you mention and it always had a pretty poor performance for me, even on brand new hardware which handles other webGL demos and my own webGL projects pretty well. So I guess what this shows is that webGL is still pretty hardware and implementation dependent.

Re: The New Google Maps

#153
I only saw the video, didn't try this yet, but one thing looks like it has the potential to drive me insane: The search results list (and map view) changes when I click one of the results!?

The way I usually browser through a list of results is by clicking each map bubble and taking action based on the details that pop up (open a new tab, call the place, refine my search, ignore the result, etc). This new version of maps seems to infer from me clicking on a bubble, that I like the underlying result. Which of course is not true because I clicked the bubble in order to figure out if I like it. Anyone else think they have this backward?

Re: The New Google Maps

#154
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they cared why wouldn't they buy Waze?

Because Waze isn't really that good either.

but Waze+apple could be. If you have a ton of cash and an inferior product, why wouldn't you buy up competent smaller players?

Re: The New Google Maps

#155
post #49

This is a straight up attack on yelp, targeting local commerce. Their goal is that instead of searching yelp for massage therapy, you search google maps. That sort of query is extremely valuable (trust me - my company pays for it every day). It makes a lot of business sense - it's probably the most lucrative way to monetize maps, and get people to use google reviews more.

And I wish Google well in this realm. Given yelp's somewhat shady practices, I welcome more competition (well, I would welcome the competition regardless, but especially in this case).

Re: The New Google Maps

#156
It's personal bias from my previous experience in travel -- but it's very interesting to see the small (grayed out) 'flight' logo as one of the navigation options in the top-left.

Re: The New Google Maps

#157
post #49

This is a straight up attack on yelp, targeting local commerce. Their goal is that instead of searching yelp for massage therapy, you search google maps. That sort of query is extremely valuable (trust me - my company pays for it every day). It makes a lot of business sense - it's probably the most lucrative way to monetize maps, and get people to use google reviews more.

And I wish Google well in this realm. Given yelp's somewhat shady practices, I welcome more competition (well, I would welcome the competition regardless, but especially in this case).

> Given yelp's somewhat shady practices

I remember reading about this a couple years ago. Is it still an issue? Can you point to any recent sources?

Re: The New Google Maps

#158

Google map was the one of the first web applications that revolutionized the web with Ajax. This new Google map could be another one that revolutionize the industry again with WebGL.

Calm down with the hyperbole. I mean have you EVER tried WebGL ? It is not ready for prime time and I shudder to think what people on older machines or laptops are going to experience.

I think the same mentality was probably held about AJAX before google maps was out.

Re: The New Google Maps

#159
I can't figure out how to do the simplest thing with Google Maps: send a location to my phone (running Android) in such a way that I'm guaranteed that it will appear as the top choice when I click the Google Maps icon in Applications.

I can "send to phone" (SMS) a link, email a link, or send to a car I don't own or a GPS unit I haven't purchased however.

So I have meeting tomorrow, I want to be sure that when I click the Google Maps icon the address I want to navigate to will be the first thing listed.

Re: The New Google Maps

#160
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook has consistently done the same thing with all of their new features (Graph Search, Timeline, etc). I fail to see why this is so egregious?

To add to that, Google has consistently done invite rollouts in their past like Gmail and Google+ to name a couple.

Early on, in the "startup" stage which seems to be the point that comment was making.
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