(With apologies to Dora the Explorer …)
Sharing this not to get into any sniping war about Google vs Apple (in any arena, not just maps), but for the insight the article provides into the complexity of providing maps, and the benefits of long-term strategic investment and planning about how to take massive amounts of data and aggregate them into useful information.
In this case, it’s about Google taking not just map and address info, but Street View and satellite data to provide a variety of details and location aggregation work that really makes Google Maps an increasingly useful tool.
Very cool stuff, though quite a lot of comparison animated GIFs.
Originally shared by +Colm Buckley:
Gosh this is cool. I had no idea we were doing some of this stuff.
Google Maps’s Moat
How far ahead of Apple Maps is Google Maps?
Punny!
But maps!
The article is brilliantly done. However, Justin neglected to mention the Google guides and the millions of updated data that we willing participants give them with our location data, and our updates on locations and what is actually sitting in that spot.
He also doesn't mention Niantic and Ingress (and probably Pokemon) which I'm sure has billions of points giving them insight into our locational data.
I'm a Google Guide in the area he used as an example (Peru, IL). I was a bit shocked to see a map of my area.
+Simon Vince Good note on the various crowdsourcing bits that Google has teed up as well. Though, honestly, some of that Ingress data is … not terribly reliable / useful (recalling from my days in the game).
+Dave Hill, I only played a little off the beginning, but, our city map was pretty darn bang on with businesses and statues and the like. So maybe, mileage may vary, but, they had to get some accurate location data from the cell towers.
No matter though. They got a lot of data from us over the years, at least we're still seeing some benefit despite them owning us 😜
Obligatory +Kristin Milton ping!