april 2009 archives

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Going local in the low countries

The launch of Microsoft's Live Search Maps Netherlands with local listings from the telephone directory De Telefoongids and the business directory De Gouden Gids was already back in January and was picked up by quite a few mapping blogs at the time. However, it wasn't until about two weeks ago that Dutch marketing blogs such as Marketingfacts, Dutch Cowboys, and Adformatie finally spread the news.

So, what caused the delay? When Live Search Maps Netherlands was launched, the De Telefoongids and De Gouden Gids weren't quite ready at the time to cope with the expected load. Apparently, that's been fixed now and a press release could go out!

Also Google Maps Netherlands has increased its local relevancy for Dutch online visitors tapping into local business listings from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. It wasn't until the deal between Google and the Chamber of Commerce was covered in the Dutch radio programme TROS Radio Online that the deal received any attention. The programme highlights, that the public trade registers of the Chamber of Commerce also contain home addresses of freelancers, because they tend to register their home addresses as their trading addresses. This is okay for some, but not if you are a Dutch celebrity... Similarly, when Google launched Street View in the Netherlands, it didn't take long before the first Dutch celebrity (Beau van Erven Dorens) was spotted!

The public/private debate is not only about the people listed in the public register. Another angle in this debate is, that the Chamber of Commerce actually sold the public register to Google. The Dutch socialist party SP has already called for the Chamber of Commerce to cease selling the trade register to third parties. Shouldn't Google simply be able to obtain the register free of charge if it is public anyway? Maybe, but only if there is a way for people to opt in explicitly, I'd say...  permanent link for this entry

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Crowd sourcing not so free maps

Within the last week, the People's Map, Google, and Tele Atlas made their next steps in collaborative mapping to gather Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). The new People's Map website was launched with a bigger map, improved performance of the map navigation, and better geocoding results. Google just announced Map Maker Download, offering the base map of Kenya, either as an ESRI shapefile or KML file as a free download. Maybe unnoticed, Tele Atlas updated its Map Insight, now featuring the same map tiles that also appear on the TomTom Route Planner.

On the People's Map website, anyone can create and maintain maps of Britain by tracing aerial photography. Licensing is free for private and non-commercial use, but the map can also be used for commercial purposes based on a perpetual licensing scheme.

The Kenyan base map has been created by contributors tracing aerial or satellite imagery on the Google Map Maker website. The data is for non-commercial use only, applications shall not compete with other services available through the Google Maps API or other products/services, and comes with strict attribution requirements. Also, check out Mikel Maron's posting on this topic.

Map Insight allows Tele Atlas to take in digital map feedback from end users of their B2B customers' products and services. Contributors can locate these errors and changes by clicking on a map that is based on the current Tele Atlas map release. This feedback is then passed on to the teams who research and update the map data so it can be worked into the next quarterly map release. Obviously, the new map release — including the contributed map feedback — is Tele Atlas Licensed Content and may also be protected by country-specific copyrights of individual national mapping agencies (NMAs).

Despite the license restrictions of these not so free maps, crowd sourcing appears to be a successful strategy to grow, enrich, and update these maps. Many people supply contributions to the People's Map, Google, and Tele Atlas. For example, the People's Map monthly ranking shows that just its top 10 contributors alone have added 170953 road, 12704 points, and 522254 nodes by March 2009. The fact that Google has included a static data snapshot from Google Map Maker on Google Maps for quite a list of countries already and the gallery of contributions indicate the success of Google Map Maker, launched just short of a year ago.

With OpenStreetMap, not only can anyone add to the map, anyone can also use the map as long as you follow the terms of the CC-BY-SA license. Similarly, with TomTom Map Share, all TomTom users can not only make corrections to their own map instantly and report map errors back to TomTom, but they also receive verified map corrections for free upon connecting their sat-nav device to the TomTom HOME desktop application. Contributors give something, but they also get a lot in return. However, what makes people contribute to the People's Map, Google Map Maker, or Tele Atlas Map Insight?  permanent link for this entry