Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Maps' Moat

justinobeirne.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 619 posts

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#281

Post by mhaymo »

kbart wrote: post #277
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…

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

The Google Maps app on Android has offline maps.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#282

Post by PeterisP »

ghaff wrote: post #96
canoebuilder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, the map is not the territory and the cars are engaging with the territory. Another interesting thing to consider, should there be widespread use of autonomous vehicles is the absolutely massive deployment of digital sensors that would entail, and who would use this data and to what ends? It would basically be realtime Streetview.

There's a fairly steady stream of posts here about data/privacy/etc. It's easy to pillory companies for violating privacy rules in various ways or mishandling data. However, given that data can't be reliably anonymized and that a lot of things that happen in public have simply never been systematically recorded in the past, there are a lot of fundamental questions over what sorts of data should be recorded when they…

I feel that in the long run the answer is going to be heavily biased towards automated driving - unautomated driving kills. Every year more than a million of people worldwide die for no good reason, just because we suck as drivers; currently automated driving isn't yet superior, but in the long run it will clearly be so.

I don't think that we'll ever justify that massive loss of privacy is more important than massive loss of life and health; especially if the bad consequences of loss of privacy is generally hypothetical and in the future; and the bad consequences of traffic accidents are obvious and immediate.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#283

Post by 7952 »

ajkjk wrote: post #9

Things like this make me think that it's a shame humanity is duplicating all this work instead of collaborating to do it once. One of the awkward failures of capitalism, I guess. At least when your product is something physical you end up with twice as many outputs. When it's just data you just do the same work twice.

The reuse value of this kind of data is critically dependant on the methodology used to create the data. A lot of Google data tends to understandably be focused on their own products and lack quality in a more generic sense. Something as simple as a building outline can be represented in several different ways depending on what you need and require a completely different methodology. The building outline needed by law enforcement is different to what an architect or pizza delivery company needz.

When specific about the type of data there is a lot less competition than you might expect. And for commercial companies it makes sense to make as much money as possible front that.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#284

Post by robin_reala »

m_mueller wrote: post #239
ancarda wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using Apple Maps a few weeks ago, and wanted to get something to eat. I saw a place called “Shake Shack” and decided to go there. Not only did it not exist, I checked online, there has never been a Shake Shack in my town, there’s only a handful in my country. How Apple Maps got that wrong, I honestly don’t know. Where did the data come from, and why is it that incorrect? I reported it, and it’s since been remov…

It seems they wanted to be Google Maps but failed. You raise a very interesting point with OpenStreetMap - just like WebKit, Apple could just have put some of their billions into boosting that effort, I agree that this would have been way more productive, especially given how engaged smartphone users are with their maps.

They did (partially) use OpenStreetMap at the start of their mapping efforts: https://blog.openstreetmap.org/2012/10/02/apple-maps/ . No idea what their current involvement is though.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#285

Post by lylo »

mhaymo wrote: post #281
kbart wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

The Google Maps app on Android has offline maps.

iOS too

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#286

Post by ehsankia »

kbart wrote: post #277
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…

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

I just tried checking my house on Here. It says there's a McDonald next to me and there most definitely isn't. Also my entire apartment complex is completely blank on there (and I'm in Silicon valley, not some rural town). Seeing that Google Maps also has offline mode, I don't see a single reason why you'd prefer that over Google Maps.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#287

Post by aorav »

puzzle wrote: post #156
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…

The more pedestrian reason for Google's investment for its own maps was that the licensing costs for data to use in turn-by-turn navigation, which is many times as expensive compared to simpler uses, were going to skyrocket once mobile adoption took off as projected. You could give millions or billions to TomTom, which is what Apple has been doing, or you could pour the same amounts into creating your own datasets, a…

> You could give millions or billions to TomTom, which is what Apple has been doing, or you could pour the same amounts into creating your own datasets, allowing you to do a lot more than navigation, i.e. anything.

It is rumored that TomTom and Apple have a data deal. Apple gets maps from TomTom (for free, or a strongly reduced price), TomTom gets Apple maps user location data which they use for their traffic service.

How the deal works exactly isn't known (financial details are not public). But it's quite clear Apple doesn't pay a lot to make use of or improve TomTom maps.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#288

Post by stephen_g »

adjkant wrote: post #271
NegativeLatency wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer apple maps to google maps for most use cases.

Why?

Depends where you are. I’ve heard there are certain countries where Google Maps’ data isn’t actually very good.

For street data and navigation. Apple Maps in Australia is pretty much the same as Google Maps, so I mainly just use Apple Maps because I can command it via Siri while driving.

Google Maps has better search though if you don’t know the address, and the building outlines and street view are nice.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#289

Post by kbart »

ehsankia wrote: post #286
kbart wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

I just tried checking my house on Here. It says there's a McDonald next to me and there most definitely isn't. Also my entire apartment complex is completely blank on there (and I'm in Silicon valley, not some rural town). Seeing that Google Maps also has offline mode, I don't see a single reason why you'd prefer that over Google Maps.

There is no perfect map (at least for now), I've had the same experience with every map app I tried. You just have to choose which one works best on a given location.

Re: Google Maps' Moat

#290

Post by raverbashing »

kbart wrote: post #277
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…

"Google maps are so much better than anything out there." I'd take Nokia's Here anytime instead of Google Maps (offline maps alone are worth it). Also, I honestly don't understand a logic behind crediting something as complex to a single person ("a hero") -- "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects, I'm sure they would have been fi…

> "S. Jobs created iPhone", "M. Mayer created Google Maps" etc., there were whole teams of smart people working on these projects

Of course there were smart people working on it. But someone has to have long term and execution vision to make these happen

Today it's obvious that was the path, at the time, not so much

Post reply on HN