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Google Maps has become an eyesore

fastcompany.com

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Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#81

Post by wg0 »

hintymad wrote: post #66

Is this inevitable, though? How many PMs and directors and ambitious engineers does Google Maps hire? If a company puts someone in a role, that person will do everything to make something happen, right? As for Google Maps, that means more and more features will show up on the maps.

In a general setting, I have found two interesting aspect to how and why software gets developed.

Most of the products reach their inherent feature maturity (a toaster just needs to toast and eject) and beyond that much isn't needed by the end users (a digital temp display, Bluetooth connectivity with notifications to mobile app when toast is ready and such) but rather gets developed either:

Because Product manager has to show and prove his/her worth to the higher ups OR the backlog should be full and the team MUST NOT sit idle.

In my observation - some 60% of the written software comes from above and that ranks far higher than any critically necessary technical debt no matter what unless software comes to a grinding halt.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#82

Post by danjc »

tjbiddle wrote: post #60

What drives me nuts is using the "Search this area" feature once I zoom in. Especially if there's an add anywhere in a 20mi radius. Google Maps usually shows far too much stuff, so I zoom into the area where I am and want to just search that square so I can browse the list easier. But then it'll zoom out and auto-select the first ad miles away - completely defeating the purpose.

Absence of street names is not accidental. I wonder if the theory is that leaving them off is more likely to ensure you remain dependent on the app.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#83

Post by sidlls »

Roark66 wrote: post #64

>In the perennial battle between mapping services, there are two main competitors: Google Maps and Apple Maps. Seriously? What about Bing? What about the entire segment of the mapping app market for drivers like NaviExpert or Yanosik. Finally, what about OpenStreetMap?

I didn’t realize Bing had a map app, and I’ve never heard of NaviExpert of Yanosik. Granted, sample size of 1 (actually a half dozen or so—my immediate family haven’t heard of these either).

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#85

Post by pests »

AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

I recently watched this show on netflix called "The Billion Dollar Code" that went into the details about maps beginnings and other companies claim to the idea. It was pretty interesting.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#87

Post by xaphod »

suid wrote: post #53
cyberax wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nor how to trigger street view You need to drag the "man" icon and drop it on the map. I had to google that.

And while you're carefully dragging the "man" over to the street you're interested in (an interesting multi-hand challenge with most trackpads), Maps starts wildly gyrating and sliding the map around in an infinite scroll because you didn't center the "man" within one second or whatever. I hate that UI. Why can't we just click on the "man", and then click on a spot to drop it?

>I hate that UI. Why can't we just click on the "man", and then click on a spot to drop it?

You can, actually. When you click it, all of the roads that have street view are highlighted with blue color. In this mode you can just click on the roads to go to street view.

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#88

Post by hedora »

AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

The main reason degoogled android doesn’t work is because of the (terrible) design of the android location services and maps APIs.

I’m not sure who that drives revenue for, though.

I switched back to iPhone over this. I strongly prefer Here We Go to Apple Maps, and it is available on Android.

(Open platform, my ass…)

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#89

Post by dietr1ch »

AlbertCory wrote: post #34

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself. Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad. If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Goo…

If google can't make money with maps, why isn't Maps taken out of google into a charity/non-profit backed thing. There's OpenStreetMap, and Wikipedia wouldn't mind having a Map I guess.

That way it'd help a bit with the monopoly heat and maintaining it could be slightly cheaper. I don't know the legal stuff, but I'd rather have a company supporting a non-profit than burning money internally, so I hope the incentives follow that (yeah, probably not true thanks to lobby and having rich people run governments)

Re: Google Maps has become an eyesore

#90

Post by papa-whisky »

blamazon wrote: post #80
esafak wrote: post #13

Google Maps is actually one of the few Google properties that has not got bad. I appreciate their reviews since they don't have Yelp's problem of extorting businesses.

It's also neat that you can review almost everything in google maps. Wanna leave a review for a cool rock in your neighborhood? Sure! Why not.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Murder+Cove/@57.0310912,-1...

edit: also this one made me chuckle https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tim+Hortons/@82.4982691,-6...

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