Wikipedia Mobile Apps Switch To OpenStreetMap

Techdirt reports that the latest versions of Wikipedia's mobile apps have switched to OpenStreetMap from Google Maps. Says Techdirt's commentary: "One wonders how Google didn't see this coming — or if they did, what exactly their strategy is here. OpenStreetMap is gaining a lot of momentum, and in some areas even features much better data. The real lesson here is that there's never an incumbent that isn't at risk of being unseated, no matter how widespread the adoption of their product or service—especially if they make an anti-customer decision like Google when it put a price tag on Maps. The situation also points to the long-term strength of open solutions: while a crowdsourced system like OpenStreetMap never could have put together a global mapping product as quickly as Google did, over time it has become a serious competitor in terms of both quality and convenience."

Comments

Danger Google

[GeneralTurgidson]

If this and DuckDuckGo start gaining momentum google may find itself in Altavista's shoes.

Re:Danger Google

[lastx33]

If this and DuckDuckGo start gaining momentum google may find itself in Altavista's shoes.

I agree. Have already switched to DuckDuckGo and it's a breath of fresh air to miss out on the ads and not worry about being tracked. I have contributed to OpenStreetMap and have seen the content on it it grow over the last couple of years at a terrific rate. It has the potential to be an absolute goldmine of information as more people contribute gps tracks and local points of interest.

Re:Danger Google

[TeXMaster]

I would like to use DDG too, but the only thing it has which is useful (at least as of now) is the zero-click info-box. The actual search results are quite horrible compared to what Google provides (probably because DDG relies essentially on Bing, which is having huge problems keeping their database in good shape).

Re:Danger Google

[Sique]

With rare exception, software projects end up half assed, 90% feature complete, and skip implementation of anything difficult. The "it's good enough" approach.

There. Fixed thad for you.

Re:Danger Google

[selven]

With rare exception, projects end up half assed, 90% feature complete, and skip implementation of anything difficult. The "it's good enough" approach.

Fixed again. cf. Sturgeon's law.

Re:Danger Google

[Jarik C-Bol]

Which will last until duckduckgo starts getting more traffic than is being paid for by the ad's, and suddenly, duckduckgo becomes the next google, where the ads are compulsory. As much as we hate it, we have to realize, the ads pay for these fantastic magical services, so that you don't have to fork over 5$ or 10$ or 15$ a month to use them. Nothing is free. Ever.

Re:Danger Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop fixing it... it's already good enough.

Who pays for the tile servers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Acquiring the data isn't the only cost. Serving tiles to millions of clients each day can't be cheap. Who pays for that, if there aren't any ads and the service is free to use?

Re:Who pays for the tile servers?

[gl4ss]

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy

(if you make an app you should mirror the stuff to your own servers.. there's couple of links to services providing tiles based on osm data there)

Re:Who pays for the tile servers?

[TheRaven64]

Actually, one of the main reasons that I use an OSM app on my phone instead of the Google Maps one (aside from the fact I don't need a corporate stalker) is that it isn't serving tiles to me. I just grab the data once and store it on my phone. That means I can use the maps with my phone's GPS when I'm out of signal range (or somewhere with only GPRS signals, where using Google Maps is a bit painful) or when I'm in a different country and the data roaming charges would make it stupidly expensive.

The OSM data is licensed in a way that allows redistribution and the project actively encourages people to do this. Clients are allowed to aggressively cache or mirror the data, something which Google or Bing maps do not allow.

Re:Who pays for the tile servers?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can cache maps using Google Maps on Android devices. I've cached the whole area around where I live and can use GPS with it without any Internet connection.

To cache a map area click somewhere on the map, then click the little arrow on the right that shows more detail, then at the bottom you should see a button labelled "pre-cache map data".

However, the OSM maps are far far better in my area though, which is reason enough to use them over Google Maps.

Google didn't see it coming?

[iampiti]

Well I guess Google carefully considered pros and cons before charging for maps and if they didn't is their problem.
The summary (yes, I didn't RTFA) seems to imply that the right or normal thing would be that google dominated the maps landscape. Well, obviously they have to compete with everyone else and if a decision makes them lose clients it's their problem. Maybe that loss was calculated and they calculated they'd get more benefits in the long run if they get rid of non-paying customers.

Superior for trails

[dargaud]

In my country there are very good 1:25000 maps, but the trails in the wooded areas can be off by hundreds of meters because they we mapped before the time of the GPSs and there's no way to use a theodolite acurately on a forest trail. Come the GPS: I take a track, clean it up a bit, upload it to OSM and the trail is now a lot more accurate than the best maps available...

Re:Superior for trails

[TheRaven64]

Superior for a lot of things. I'm moving to Cambridge soon, and the university accommodation office uses both Bing and Google maps for their web site (no idea why - it seems quite random which one you get). Neither of them even labels all of the colleges, let along the university buildings. In contrast, OSM labels all of the colleges, most of the university buildings, and even a lot of shops, pubs, and restaurants are there by name.

When I visited a friend in Paris, Google Maps had the street he lived on labelled, but OSM had the building numbers marked as well.

That said, there are a few places where it is less good. For example, it doesn't have integrated route finding, but there are third-party route finders using the same data. If you want to create a map with one marker on it and send it as a link to someone, you can do it via the OSM web interface, but the UI is pretty horrible. If you want multiple tags, then you need to host your own OpenLayers thing and write some JavaScript. The search feature in OSM is pretty poor as well. It doesn't factor distance into account (although the one on the OSM client on my phone does), so if I search for a street name while looking at a city in the UK, I often have to scroll past a dozen streets in random US cities with the same name before I find the right one.

anti-customer decision?

[AngryDeuce]

Last time I checked, maps is still free for people to use, they're just charging for commercial use, but that makes perfect sense. If you're a business, I can't see why you'd be complaining about having to pay a little something that makes it easier for your customers to find you. Nobody is forcing you to use Maps. Go ahead and switch if the expense is too much for you. As TFS states, there are other alternatives.

Hooray for the free market!

Project Glass

[MLCT]

This might be a little "tinfoil hat", and I doubt very much if it is the main reason why google started charging - but I just wonder if longer term thoughts like project glass might factor into their decision.

Products like Glass are basically just one big world of maps - mapping, satellite, traffic, public transport. Giving that away completely free no-strings-attached forever would just allow others to make products without the overhead that google have to shoulder alone. Something like glass is a long way off, but perhaps there may be a small degree of laying down the norms early on.

For basic mapping openstreetmap is completely fine, but if all of the finer granularity (streetview, satellite, traffic data) is required then that costs a lot of money to acquire/maintain - and fair enough if google want to start asking those that use it to contribute.

Try open.mapquest.com

[gQuigs]

Give http://open.mapquest.com/ a try. It uses OpenStreetMap data while including many mapquest features, including satellite imagery.

Personally

[LiroXIV]

I think this is more of an ideological move. Google Maps is not free content like Wikipedia itself. OpenStreetMap however, shares many of the same values as Wikipedia itself; such as its use of an environment that encourages contribution by others, the use of licensing that encourages the sharing and rebuilding of content instead of forbidding it, and so on.