Today, Erick Schonfeld from Techcrunch noticed that a small Google Ads was appearing at the bottom of Google Maps. For the blog writer, the story makes sense: Google’s stocks are losing value, and so the company is tapping into its unexploited page views to increase distributed ads and revenues. Unfortunately, if you click on an ad at the bottom of a map, it will not pop up a marker on the map, it will just open the Website of the advertiser, just like regular Google ads do. Disappointing!
“shoe store San Francisco” shows results but “shoe store” while looking at San Francisco doesn’t. Presumably this behavior will change according to what keywords advertisers bid on.
That’s the downside of such a precipitated move: Google has applied a traditional bidding system. For maps, it would make more sense if advertisers could bid on keywords overlaid on geographic areas bids. Unfortunately, this system would require more development efforts, and it seems that Google doesn’t have time for subtleties these days.
Here at Click2map, users can chose to display Google Ads around the maps they create, and generate money out of it. Antony, can you specify in the comments if our users will get to make some money out of this new ad placement as well?
In the USA, about 1/4 of American voters have not register to vote yet. We all know how important the role of the next US president (Obama or McCain) will be on an international scale. For the purpose of pushing the 1/4 unregistered voters to go put their names on the voting lists, the Google Maps team developed a clever tool to help unregistered voters find their nearest voting location, along with detailed information related to voting deadlines specific to different states and counties.
We’re trying to help increase participation by making sure you have easy access to voting information. Google’s Voter Info Map currently puts registration, absentee and early voting information in one place.
Once again, we see how emerging mapping technologies can play a central role in the structuralization of a community’s information system. To raise awareness of such a useful community tool, the Google Maps team partnered up with scores of Hollywood stars who participated to the creation of this 5-minute video-clip. The purpose of the video is to motivate the unregistered voters to use the Google’s Voter Info Map to find the nearest place to go register.
Movie stars are encouraging us to be good citizens through new technologies. This definitely is a new world order!
Mike Blumenthals wrote today about the latest Google Maps scandal (for the mapping community) where spammers were eating up flower merchants ranking and contact info on Google maps, provoking huge profit losses for those businesses. Apparently, things are back to normal, or almost.
Anyhow, these days, I’m a lot into (benign) hacking, and I thought it would be interesting to list a few useful Google Maps hacks here. I’ll try to leave third-party applications on the side as much as possible to focus only on tweaks, but this is not an easy task (mostly for a non-developer like me).
The first category of hacks are video games: Developed by Japanese Katsuomi Kobayashi, Geoquake is a driving simulation game using Google Earth. It is a flash application that allows a 40 frames per seconds visualization (compared to Google Earth’s traditional 20 frames/sec). In the same type of hacks is the flight simulator, a fun way to fly over your town using the Earth plug-in. Also, as reported yesterday on Google Maps Mania’s Friday fun, another Japanese developer has created this game that plugs the Wii and Street View together to allow you to jog around your neighborhood without leaving your living room.
A Google Maps hack to keep an eye on is the Easy Google Maps hack, a project started this week during the Hack Day event, which plan is to tackle Google Maps’ lack of usability by creating a maps “player” based on the same idea of the Easy Youtube player. The project idea is really good and could be very useful, so I hope those developers will reach their goals.
A more practical hack was found on LifeHacker. The hack offers a mean to zoom way in on a map by tweaking the maps’ urls. Also found on LifeHacker is a way to make your Google Maps searches a little faster by entering your geo-location directly in the url, as follows:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1683 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
By now, I think we all heard of the biggest drawing in the world, right? Well, this actually was a hoax, but it inspired a few people to apply this drawing technique, and others to apply this hoax technique, like BoingBoing, which developed a quick app that lets you easily draw shapes on a map (this is not a Gmaps hack, but it is worth the mention).
Recently on Click2Map, we announced a new addition to our service that enables our users to easily cluster their markers on Google Maps to make their cartographic info more easy to browse and click through. While this is the easy and mainstream way to group markers, developers can also use this Javascript hack to cluster markers. The technique is a little complicated, but it definitely fits the Gmaps hack section.
A great site that integrates Google Maps and offers a wide range of geographic services is heywhatsthat.com, developed by Michael Kosowsky. The service is so hackalicious that the creator gave a keynote speech for one of the Google TechTalks.
There are probably so many more hacks out there, but they are so hard to find that I will stop here and rely on your good will to share tips and urls to further this discussion. I couldn’t find a single hack for MyMaps, despite intensive search, and this disappoints me a little, as I am sure there could be great creative ways to use this marker creation tool.
It makes no doubt today that Google Maps is the rising star of online maps provider. Even though Mapquest is still leader on the market, it doesn’t beat the search empire in terms of innovation and business opportunities.
Since I work for a company that builds its entire business assets on top of GoogleMaps (even though they can easily switch platforms), I was wondering how stable and secure was the Google Maps ecosystem. How risky is it to build a business on top of Google Maps? To explore this question, I will simply make a SWOT of Google Maps. At the end of this analysis, I hope to provide an educated response on the reliability of Google Maps.
Also, I will try to avoid talking about attributes that belong to Google in general, such as the company’s philosophy, their ability to hire talents, Adsense and so on.
Strengths
Google Maps is creating an unprecedented opportunity for local merchants to put their business on the map. As the mapping system keeps growing, it becomes a loss to omit listing your business on Google Maps. As this blogger testifies, a lot of people rely on Google geo-located business info to shop on a daily basis.
Google Maps is also part of a global innovative project that gathers Google Earth, Street View, Sketchup, Lively… It is much too soon to know if those products will become prevalent in the way we use the Web, but it sure makes the mapping product look much more compelling.
Opportunities
Since it is a geo-localization tool, it makes sense for the maps to be accessible via mobile. It also makes sense for the maps to know where you are by localizing your cell phone. Any mobile phone with a Web browser can access Google Maps, but the search company is also working deals with telephony providers to make Google Maps the map provider by default on mobile devices. Google Maps is also pushing its way in the CRM space by signing partnerships with giants like Oracle. This business development strategy ensures Google Maps’ vertical hold on the online map market.
Google Maps is also an opportunity in terms of SEO. The video below was found on Mattseo.com, and it shows a way to cheat the search results on Google Maps.
This shows that the search algorithm for geo-localized results are a bit candid, and now is the time for merciless SEO agencies to spam this whole thing out and abusively reach millions of location-seekers. That’s a great marketing opportunity.
Weaknesses
What appears to be a SEO opportunity turns out to be a weakness for Google’s business. First, a spammable engine doesn’t have any business value. Second, honest businesses can lose a lot because of this search weakness. On this forum, there is a great example of how this crack can harm a business. Basically, the story is about a flower shop in Denver. 95% of their customers are leads generated online. For ever, the flower shop showed up on top of Google SERPs. The owners invested a significant amount of money in Adsense campaigns to get there. One day, another florist randomly took pole position on the Google Maps SERPs, and our flower shop went bankrupt.
Not only can you game the system, but nobody will help the victims over at Google, simply because Google has never set up any user assistance service (aside from forums). For example, when you have a bug going on and related to the Google Maps’ API, it feels really shady to hear that Google’s not there to help.
Threats
Of course, for anybody considering building a business on top of Google Maps, the biggest threat is Google itself. As Andy Beal writes on this post, Google has a tendency to pull the rag from under API developers. MyMaps have provoked mixed reactions in the mapping community. By doing so, Google instates a feeling of mistrust: If your application works well and becomes very popular, expect Google to “me-to” you, but free.
Competing against Google is almost impossible. Almost. Here is the example of PlaceBase, a company that initially started as a white-label mapping business. A few months after PlaceBase launched, Google Maps entered the market, stealing PlaceBase’s thunder. Determined to succeed, the Founder of PlaceBase decided to focus on specific core competencies, and today his company is doing great.
Google Maps’ competition is a threat that is worth considering: EveryScape is a company that offers 360 views of stores’ interiors and exteriors, is frontally challenging Google Maps:
“I’m quite confident that if we have world coverage of interiors and exteriors, people will leave Google and come to us”, says EveryScape’s CEO.
If arrogance seems to be EveryScape main weapon to evangelize their product, the company succeeds to remind us that an innovative mapping product could show up at any time and steal Google Maps’ hype.
Conclusion:
Despite the proliferation of online maps, and the growing success of Google Maps in the mapping space, building a business on top of Google Maps remains very challenging, and requires strong entrepreneurial nerves. Google Maps is a fertile land, but it can also rise up from the ground and raze your business’ value proposition overnight.
The best approach to cope with Google’s schizophrenia is to focus on your existing customership and be the best at providing them with the tools they need to create maps. A giant is limited in speed. Be swift, lead innovation, and maybe take advantage of the few cracks in the system while it’s still there.
Google has become so much more than just a search company in the past years, that I wonder how they would define themselves today. When you think about it, Google offers a whole suite of Web-based (and desktop-based) softwares for free. Many of their products have outgrown their initial purpose to become priceless tools of our everyday lives.
In the case of Google Maps for example, the mapping service goes way beyond spotting a geographic location and telling you how to get there. First, thanks to crowdsource efforts, it is smart enough to show you the cheapest gas stations around. Not only will it drive you around, but it will tip you on which roads to take to avoid tolls. Those two tools alone can help anybody reduce their car-related spending.
This positions Google very closely to our transportation habits. The Mountain View juggernaut has pushed a bit their product in a fantasy world by adding street view to their map. This means that you can save even more gas dollars by checking out a home and its neighborhood from your computer screen. An increasing number of real estate companies are adding in street view to their sites. One could start to argue that Google Maps is a transportation mean all to itself (like a car or a plane).
My point is not to say that I will spend the week end in Vegas on Google Maps, no. However, all those elements perfectly show that Google thrives to become a major provider of transportation solutions. The project RechargeIT is the perfect example to illustrate this idea. RechargeIt is a project to design an electric car which tank you fill up with sunlight. Here is a short explanatory video from the Google.org team:
The next generation of cars will be smart cars, and what was initially a project to create and share maps online is quickly turning into a crowdsource wisdom for electronic devices. Google Maps is the cornerstone of all this, and so we at Click2Map are proud to be a part of this cultural movement.
After adding walking directions a few weeks ago, Google Maps is now bringing a simplified layout to its Maps. The announcement starts by 3 words that could be Google’s motto: “less is more”. Basically, the map displayed is a little bigger, and the search box stands on top of the map. This means less cluster, more room, and a friendlier way to surf maps in general.
While Google Maps’ main challenge is to bring the whole wide world to the world wide Web, the challenge for RIA built on top of Google Maps is to the right ergonomy to squeeze in additional information: listings, marker descriptions, geographic information… As Frederic Lardinois from RWW mentions, “now that the tabs are gone, there is a stronger focus on the search form“. Good point. I guess that once again, even for online maps, search is going to be the dominant behavior to find geographic information (instead of listings or marker designs for example). At least this makes sense in a Google world.
GeoRSS is a simple way to include location in RSS feeds. In Dan Catt’s own words, “it’s pretty simple. This is what you get in the rss XLM: <georss:point>37.79586 -122.395259</georss:point>“
It is, indeed, dead simple.
So when Google announced that the GeoRSS support had been added to Google Maps, rapidly followed by Microsoft a month later, the news got very positive feedback. By enabling the attachment of geodata to any media content online, Google made it possible to easily spot online content on a map.
Some of the interesting applications of GeoRSS include Outside.in: once you gave your zip code to the service, it automatically retrieves all the blog news in your geographic parameter. While the site is still building up, it holds a nice vision of a new way to receive news. Outside.in even received funds for this project. BrightKite - the location-based social network - is also good example of how to apply GeoRSS to online social behaviors.
Unfortunately, things get more complicated when it comes to monetizing a geoweb service. As Sean Gorman clearly explains in the Off The Map blog that selling ads on maps is Google-Yahoo-Microsoft’s business, and they have pretty much locked down the market.
I guess the real question becomes: if you cannot rely on the good-old advertising model, how do you integrate GeoRSS as an active component of your business model? What is the value added by GeoRSS that is psychologically important enough for money to be traded in the process? For some companies, and that is going to be the case here at Click2Map, it simply enables paying-users of a broader mapping service to create loyal ties between map publishers and location seekers.
Let’s take the example of Benny Benassi, the famous Italian DJ and user of Click2Map’s services. On his tour page, a map of all the oncoming shows allows fans to easily spot the next show in their surroundings. If you add a GeoRSS function to this map, then you enable all those fans to create a direct tie with Benny Benassi’s whereabouts. Such a service is extremely valuable for professionals whose jobs imply traveling a lot.
Nonetheless, this isn’t the only way to go with GeoRSS. My personal take on it is, maps might be an increasingly growing online media, it still isn’t a mainstream online search behavior. Any projects undertaken in the field of mapping and GeoRSS must be led with a spirit of patience, as mapping will become more prominent, but it’s not quite there yet.
