The Geek Behind Google's Takeover of the Map (fastcompany.com)

tedlistens writes: Google's map isn't just a map. It's a living, complex manifestation of the data that billions of users and a team of thousands of engineers and designers feed it every day. The public face of the company's mapping effort is Ed Parsons, a gregarious Briton and geographer who as Google's Geospatial Technologist evangelizes for its mission of organizing the world's geographic information. He also works on building the trust the company needs to make Google Maps and Google Earth more detailed, useful, and increasingly, 3-D and interactive -- what he describes as "a selfie for the planet."

The terrain isn't easy: that mission faces challenges from cartographical purists, hoping to preserve the art of cartography, and the democratic mappers of OpenStreetMap ("it's become almost a parody"); from governments seeking to police sensitive borders; from a host of tech companies fighting over the map business; and from privacy defenders concerned about what Google does with that data. "We're kind of looking at what to do with it. We've got a very rich source of data there, but also one that we have to be very careful of," he says. "Your location on the planet is one of the most sensitive pieces of information that anyone can hold on you."

Comments

Re:The Google Maps UI is fucking unusable.

[Ol Olsoc]

All joking aside, the newest version of the Google Maps UI is fucking unusable.

Just as another example, once upon a time, I could map out routes in Google Maps the way I wanted to. I might want to make a side trip on the way to another destination, I'd just make waypoints. Now? I get two choices of directions. If neither go through where I'm trying to go, its TTC.

Anyone that doubts it should DDGo "Google maps suck".

You should be modded up to +5, AC.

Re:Please put all your google maps complaints here

[Ol Olsoc]

Google maps is pretty good, I'll admit. But their driving directions, don't get me started!

Why isn't there an "easy" routing option?

There was at one time. You could enter waypoints, and map it out. Then they changed it in 2015. Somehow taking command of your own trip was a bad thing that had to be eliminated.

I use

[Max_W]

OpenSreetMap.org on desktop, and Maps.me on smartphone, as it does not require internet connection.

For viewing locations of Wikipedia articles on the map I use http://ausleuchtung.ch/geo_wik... . It works for different Wikipedia language versions.

Re:The Google Maps UI is fucking unusable.

[MarkRose]

Click on the route and drag to make a new waypoint where you want.

If you want to add another destination click on the + next to the departure time.

I use both all the time.

Re:Please put all your google maps complaints here

[kheldan]

I don't think Google Maps is 'pretty good' at all, I think it's so super-bloated as to be close to unusable. I more or less have to go find something else to do for the time it sits there loading up and resolving everything on the map, and it doesn't matter what computer I'm on, it's still unbelievably slow. It didn't used to be this way, either, it used to be fairly quick. Even the so-called 'lite' version you can revert to is still so slow and and pokey that you want to pound the keyboard if you're in a hurry. And the driving directions? Very often laughably bad. In many case I'll write down my own with pen and paper rather than wade through the nonsense that Google Maps spits out. And routing? Maybe half the time it'll give you the best route. It also limits the number of 'added destinations' you can enter, which is infuriating if I'm trying to plan out a specific route for myself.