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Get Ready To Be Bombarded With Ads When Using Google Maps (news.com.au)
An anonymous reader writes: The chance to squeeze some extra advertising dollars is something rarely missed by Google. This week the company quietly announced changes to two of its most widely used services, offering businesses the chance to pay for featured advertisements in Google.com and Google Maps. In a blog post, Google senior ads vice president Sridhar Ramaswamy outlined the likely changes to Google Maps that will see users met with pop-up ads for local businesses when they use the GPS-based app. The announcement has been facetiously described online as "the Ad-pocalypse" but Google has shown more tact in their use of language, referring to the ads as "promoted pins".
Please, please, please, Google, allow me to pay you the revenues you generate from advertisers directly in the form of a subscription fee, and then DO NOT SERVE ME ADS, DO NOT TRACK ME, AND STOP BEING EVIL.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Open Street Map was truly an answer to my prayers. Being able to modify the maps based on my personal experiences is nothing short of a miracle. The wiki aspect of maps really works well here, and the end result are maps that the every-person can use well, and those of us who are just geeky as shit about maps and cartography can also get things done that we need to.
As a general question to all commentators; if you're not using Open Street Maps, what is your reason?
Been using Google Maps since the beginning... it's an awesome product that I've never paid a dime for (other than having Google scrape my geo-search related data). I don't mind seeing a few "sponsored pins" here and there.
Google has always done a good job with unintrusive ads... and I will give them the benefit of the doubt here.