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So it's going to get even slower? Awesome! I needed a bigger kick in the butt to try something else. Honestly, what a sell out. What was once neutral territ

So it's going to get even slower? Awesome! I needed a bigger kick in the butt to try something else. Honestly, what a sell out. What was once neutral territory for businesses is now available for bidding. Does Google need this revenue? What is the problem with the existing maps that they are solving? I see the full keynote is here [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW1LS94wLJw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW1LS94wLJw

rplnt 10y ago
Google Maps are practically unusable when not in lite mode (which they turn off on every occasion), so I don't use them. And even when I try, the UX is horrible and features are broken. Luckily, most of my map needs are met by a local competitor (mapy.cz). They are not perfect, but are still much superior, at least for what I want from maps. Coincidentally, their Android app (which supports offline maps) got really slow few months back. I wish I could easily downgrade to an older version (as I did with online Google maps before I gave up).
- studentrob 10y ago
  That's cool. Maybe Google doesn't want to dominate, which would be cool too.
  - rplnt 10y ago
    Oh, they sure do. Just a few years back the company behind mapy.cz had a majority share in search in Czech Republic. Somewhat of a rarity in Europe, maybe even (latin writing) world. Google ads were everywhere - radio, tv, billboards, etc... not to mention online.
    - studentrob 10y ago
      Well, I'm sure Google Inc would love to dominate but I believe their fall from grace is evidence Google engineers don't want to. Or maybe I'm off base. Nobody dominates forever.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      I thought you guys were calling yourselves "Czechia" now.
IBM 10y ago
Google is increasing ad sizes and frequency because growth is slowing. http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-increase-size-frequency-of-ads-1464105600 http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-increase-size-frequenc...
- studentrob 10y ago
  The solution to Google's dwindling advertising market is to increase the size of ads on content I watch? Noooooooooooooooo =(. Sounds like a good chance for competitors to jump in. Thanks for sharing this though, I didn't know that =)
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  I love how every advertising group thinks: "Oh, growth is slowing, time to inject more of the thing that people don't want! That'll surely make things better!"
halomru 10y ago
>I needed a bigger kick in the butt to try something else At least in Germany Open Streetmaps has vastly better maps than Google Maps. On a global scale Google or Bing maps are very consistent while OSM depends on the local community, but they are well worth checking out. For satellite images Google Earth is hard to beat, but Bing has good images as well
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  OpenStreetMaps is already excellent, but it seems like it could do with impetus in some areas. For what it's worth, these are some gaps that occur to me: * Standardization of the model for mapping on multiple levels, and with 3D, and integration of that with the editors. * Finding standardized ways to test, approve and automate maintenance of data consistency. There seems to be a lot of ad-hoc script editing, like someone writing a script to make a one-off edit of the global dataset to do a spelling correction. If that's going to happen, it should have pre-approval, and probably be integrated into an official, periodic checking and consistency process. Along the same lines, I'm not convinced small malicious or mistaken data edits will be picked up as quickly as they should be. I think most of the tools and structures are there to build the map, but not necessarily to maintain it. * Doing more to link the OpenStreetMap.org site to the projects using the data. i.e. more clearly positioning the site as a data repository, and place to find ways to consume the data, and less as a toe-to-toe competitor to Google Maps. * Pushing forward in links with wikipedia, preferably forming a connection with the structured/geographical data on wikipedia (if it's possible to find a license which is compatible with both projects, and wouldn't lock in either party). Having more eyes on the data should help to prevent bit rot. * Finding hardware to automate data collection for Mapillary (the Streetview equivalent). * Improvement of search/geocoding algorithms - to try to fill in patchy street data information (i.e. detecting sequences in house numbering). Then using those algorithms both to improve the geocoding capability, and to prioritize where data most needs to be collected - a handful of house numbers are vital for a major 5km road through the centre of a city, but they are far less important for a 30m cul-de-sac. * Finding ways to have more area based mapping for pavements, cycleways, shared space roads, pedestrian crossings, public squares etc, as an additional, progressive enhancement to the line and dot model for footways, highways, etc. Something which can be used to provide additional information in city areas where that sort of low-level mapping is useful/necessary, but isn't necessary elsewhere (clearly the whole world will never be mapped in the detail that you'd like to map central London, or one particular central railway station) In general, trying to develop policies to encourage the database to be maintained, and data collection to be managed, in a way which makes it easy to consume the data in a structured way. Glad to be corrected if I'm wrong, or ignorant of progress.
snikeris 10y ago
> Does Google need this revenue? Yes, of course. > What is the problem with the existing maps that they are solving? It's not generating enough revenue.

rplnt 10y ago

Google Maps are practically unusable when not in lite mode (which they turn off on every occasion), so I don't use them. And even when I try, the UX is horrible and features are broken. Luckily, most of my map needs are met by a local competitor (mapy.cz). They are not perfect, but are still much superior, at least for what I want from maps. Coincidentally, their Android app (which supports offline maps) got really slow few months back. I wish I could easily downgrade to an older version (as I did with online Google maps before I gave up).

studentrob 10y ago
That's cool. Maybe Google doesn't want to dominate, which would be cool too.
- rplnt 10y ago
  Oh, they sure do. Just a few years back the company behind mapy.cz had a majority share in search in Czech Republic. Somewhat of a rarity in Europe, maybe even (latin writing) world. Google ads were everywhere - radio, tv, billboards, etc... not to mention online.
  - studentrob 10y ago
    Well, I'm sure Google Inc would love to dominate but I believe their fall from grace is evidence Google engineers don't want to. Or maybe I'm off base. Nobody dominates forever.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    I thought you guys were calling yourselves "Czechia" now.

IBM 10y ago

Google is increasing ad sizes and frequency because growth is slowing. http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-increase-size-frequency-of-ads-1464105600 http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-to-increase-size-frequenc...

studentrob 10y ago
The solution to Google's dwindling advertising market is to increase the size of ads on content I watch? Noooooooooooooooo =(. Sounds like a good chance for competitors to jump in. Thanks for sharing this though, I didn't know that =)
CaptSpify 10y ago
I love how every advertising group thinks: "Oh, growth is slowing, time to inject more of the thing that people don't want! That'll surely make things better!"

halomru 10y ago

>I needed a bigger kick in the butt to try something else At least in Germany Open Streetmaps has vastly better maps than Google Maps. On a global scale Google or Bing maps are very consistent while OSM depends on the local community, but they are well worth checking out. For satellite images Google Earth is hard to beat, but Bing has good images as well

Brakenshire 10y ago
OpenStreetMaps is already excellent, but it seems like it could do with impetus in some areas. For what it's worth, these are some gaps that occur to me: * Standardization of the model for mapping on multiple levels, and with 3D, and integration of that with the editors. * Finding standardized ways to test, approve and automate maintenance of data consistency. There seems to be a lot of ad-hoc script editing, like someone writing a script to make a one-off edit of the global dataset to do a spelling correction. If that's going to happen, it should have pre-approval, and probably be integrated into an official, periodic checking and consistency process. Along the same lines, I'm not convinced small malicious or mistaken data edits will be picked up as quickly as they should be. I think most of the tools and structures are there to build the map, but not necessarily to maintain it. * Doing more to link the OpenStreetMap.org site to the projects using the data. i.e. more clearly positioning the site as a data repository, and place to find ways to consume the data, and less as a toe-to-toe competitor to Google Maps. * Pushing forward in links with wikipedia, preferably forming a connection with the structured/geographical data on wikipedia (if it's possible to find a license which is compatible with both projects, and wouldn't lock in either party). Having more eyes on the data should help to prevent bit rot. * Finding hardware to automate data collection for Mapillary (the Streetview equivalent). * Improvement of search/geocoding algorithms - to try to fill in patchy street data information (i.e. detecting sequences in house numbering). Then using those algorithms both to improve the geocoding capability, and to prioritize where data most needs to be collected - a handful of house numbers are vital for a major 5km road through the centre of a city, but they are far less important for a 30m cul-de-sac. * Finding ways to have more area based mapping for pavements, cycleways, shared space roads, pedestrian crossings, public squares etc, as an additional, progressive enhancement to the line and dot model for footways, highways, etc. Something which can be used to provide additional information in city areas where that sort of low-level mapping is useful/necessary, but isn't necessary elsewhere (clearly the whole world will never be mapped in the detail that you'd like to map central London, or one particular central railway station) In general, trying to develop policies to encourage the database to be maintained, and data collection to be managed, in a way which makes it easy to consume the data in a structured way. Glad to be corrected if I'm wrong, or ignorant of progress.

snikeris 10y ago

> Does Google need this revenue? Yes, of course. > What is the problem with the existing maps that they are solving? It's not generating enough revenue.