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> video sharing, mapping, mobile phones, and the other Google infrastructure. These are all areas ripe for innovation and disruption, This is incredibly wrong.
by animal_spirits 2y ago
> video sharing, mapping, mobile phones, and the other Google infrastructure. These are all areas ripe for innovation and disruption,
This is incredibly wrong. We've had mountains of innovation in all of these areas under Google's leadership and from competitors like Apple, Mapbox, Microsoft, AWS, etc. When Google ends up costing more to use, competitors will _not_ need to innovate to attract customers to their platforms, and the technology will stagnate.
- ethbr1 2y agoWhat innovation has happened in Maps in the last 19 years? Aside from buying Waze in 2013?
- Mochsner 2y agoAnti-features like copying a location being a gmaps unique URL instead of the actual location
- 8organicbits 2y agoAds in the map is another.
- tantalor 2y agoStreetview was only 17 years ago.
- tikhonj 2y agoOne thing I appreciate is how much better maps have gotten for non-drivers: bike and pedestrian paths, public transport (especially live schedules, delays, alerts) and legitimately good directions generated for walking, biking and taking transport. I believe that using wifi to improve localization on phones also happened within the last 19 years—quick Google found me an article from 2010 about how they started gathering data for this in 2007. I definitely remember this having a real improvement on how accurate my phone's location could be, which made using maps much nicer day-to-day.
- Arn_Thor 2y agoDidn’t better pedestrian maps come as a result of the size of the market, really? Suddenly everyone in the world had a smart GPS device in their pocket and adding some more routes onto existing maps would have made sense for any map maker, regardless if it was Google or some other hypothetical company.
- accurrent 2y agoPedestrian navigation, much better quality maps, faster load times etc. I also occassionally enjoy the AR features for walking in cities.
- dimator 2y agoMobile, gps navigation, transit features, ride hailing, fuel efficient routes, pedestrian routes, live traffic, to name a few.
- seanhunter 2y agoSEO for maps. [1] I didn't say the world has got better. [1] Yes this is a thing. A "maps SEO consultant" popped up offering me his services a few months back, and after a bit of digging it's clear this is a new and hideous barnacle of a subsector has appeared to make money out of making maps and everyone's lives worse
- wildrhythms 2y agoStreet View
- animal_spirits 2y agoNot just innovation with Google's Maps product, but innovations among all competing map products. For one, wildfire maps and air quality maps have been important for me living in the PNW. Trail maps, terrain. Mapbox has innovated a lot, creating a whole developer platform focused on map creation, direction APIs. Apple Maps has been improving a lot too. OSM is incredibly well built out, and all the related technologies built on top of OSM. Weather maps from DarkSky now Apple Weather. There's so much
- isodev 2y agoApple is not really a competitor though, is it? The post was focused on search but let's not forget Apple is experiencing their own version of sinking deeper into anti-trust lawsuits following years of market abuse.
- animal_spirits 2y agoApple competes with Google's loss-leader products, which will be impacted by these anti-trust lawsuits