We wrote a few weeks ago about the opportunities/threats of building a business on top of Google Maps. The “mainstreamization” of maps shouldn’t even be argued anymore, but the technology isn’t at the top of its performance, and here are a few reasons why:

1. Submitting local listings: Anarchic vs Tyrannic.
In an interview of Frazier Miller and Shailesh Bhat from Yahoo! Local conducted by Eric Enge of Stone Temple (and found through Mike Bluemthals’ blog), the two managers explain their company’s approach for maps and local ads.

For professional map creators, the process of submitting geo-defined listings to mapping providers is long and uncertain. While Google is still a little loose on the control it handles over user-submitted data, we can see in the interview that Yahoo has set strict control rules to extract and exploit only quality data.

In the case of Google Local, you can’t be sure that some witty SEO brains won’t push their business in pole position on a category that they could not even be related to. In the case of Yahoo!, this is the opposite approach: Most of the information is manually scrutinized (urls, geocode, user-generated changes). “They do geo-code verification so a listing will be rejected if the address doesn’t code to an actual location”: That’s a tough one, because we’ve all experienced several time submitting an address, and getting an error message, whereas you are pretty sure that the address is correct. Your whole listing is at stake with Yahoo!

In both cases, submitting listings to maps providers is not a crystal-clear operation, and at the end of the day, you may be very disappointed with the way your markers rank and perform on a map.

2. Mapping is an art, not an exact science
Back in April, Chris Silver Smith wrote an excellent article on Search Engine Lands, Top Causes of Errors In Online Maps. He explains that mapping errors - like getting a location point on the wrong side of the road - are pretty common for multiple reasons:

“The vector shape files break curved lines down into straight line segments, and there are cases where the straight line approximation of curved features can make locations get pinpointed erroneously.”

“online mapping systems often interpolate (distribute evenly) addresses along each side of a street when, in fact, business addresses may all be clumped up at one end of the street.”

“When online mapping systems do not know the correct location for an address, they often will still generate a map for the user, making a map pinpoint default to the center of a ZIP code area, or default to the centroid of a city.”

There are seven more error reasons on Chris Silver Smith’s post, so I recommend reading it. This shows that computers can’t always provide an exact and reliable result for maps, which is embarrassing when the purpose of mapping technologies is to point to an exact place in space.

3. Crowded maps
That’s the downside for map consumers: Crowded maps. Sometimes, there are so many markers on a map that the laser-focused precision of maps gets distilled in a sea of markers. This automatically drives visitors away from a page. Crowded maps are a no-no. This recent discussion on Google Groups confirms this statement. A massive number of markers can also slow your browser down.

A solution for this problem has yet to be figured out. There are numerous map-based local merchants search engines that constitute great sources of information, but the vision of hundreds of markers all overlapping each other on a map just drives visitors away. Tackling this problem could mean enhancing the performance, ie the business, of such service providers.

xavierv

The Royal Geographic Society’s annual conference in London generated more fuzz this year than it usually does. At the epicenter of the bustle, British Cartographic Society President Mary Spence blames Google and other Internet map providers juggernauts for “demolishing thousands of years of history — not to mention Britain’s remarkable geography — at a stroke by not including them on maps which millions of us now use every day.”

Needless to say, the online map blogosphere was really astonished by such a vision of online maps. At the Map Room, Jonathan Crowe interprets this reaction as a conflict of approach: Technology providers are focused on simplified geo data, and the Royal Geographic Society is focused on protecting centuries of mapping savoir-faire.

Adena Schutzberg blames a slow news month. Vector One blames a British society that “does not put geography and its associated technologies at the forefront.”

I don’t think that the President of the Royal Geographic Society seriously believes that online maps are too dull, simply because I can hardly see her not grasping the fact that online map providers are not focused on adding rich content to their maps.

Online map providers are merely recreating the earth digitally: they gather all the geodata of planet earth to build the backbone of tomorrow’s GeoWeb. But - thank God - those corporations’ intention is to enable users to bring knowledge to maps. They encourage merchants to list their business on online maps. They encourage individuals to bring their own knowledge of a location through free editing tools. They even have APIs to make it easy for institutions to display their loads of public data on a map.

Today, all of this is in the making. There are still a lot of hacks and cracks to be found in the online mapping space. The technology is not entirely stable yet. It’s easy for a conservative mind to step in the game and say that new ideas are less secure than old values. But in the case of online maps, the opportunities far outmatch the threats. It is way too obvious.

I would like to point out a new Website that was launched two months ago by the ex-Founder of Technorati. The service, Offbeat Guides, offers personalized travel guides. The system is fairly simple for the user: answer 5 simple questions about your next trip. In the background, the service fetches information from both proprietary sources and user-generated content to build a complete, good-looking and customizable guide, exclusively focused on the place you are about to visit.

The result - which is impressive - is made possible by geo-based technologies combined with search technologies. And it proves Mary Spence wrong (with all due respect, of course): Online maps are just a component of the rich and useful knowledge that is shaping the Web today. If the British Cartographic Society thinks it’s lacking information, I suggest they contribute to the user-generated effort.

xavierv

Yesterday, a very accurate comment was made on a press release from the Ripley Attraction Inc. The press release states:

53% of U.S. Population Lives Within a Half Tank of Gas of a Ripley Attraction.

Adena Schutzberg from the AllPointsBlog called this the New Gas Conscious, Distance Conscious Marketing. These past few months, US consumers have been increasingly exposed to this new form of marketing, obviously related to the rise of gas price. Even radio ads selling jewels start with a reminder of the price of gas before announcing their great money-saving deals on diamond rings.

This probably isn’t the first time that this sub-category of anxiety marketing is used: I can hardly imagine advertisers in the 70s not grabbing the gas crisis opportunity to make their products look cheaper in comparison. However, this is probably the first time in history that discounted diamonds are not the ultimate alternative to fight high gas expenses. The user-generated mapping phenomena is emerging as the solution to fix our geospatial restrictions.

Thanks to map editing tools like MyMaps, a specific geo-centric expertise - like places to find cheap gas - now has a serious appeal for consumers. Comscore released a report that confirms this new consumer behavior. Online maps rises as the rational choice to find the best shortcuts. The “at a location near you” marketing is more meaningful than ever, and it is user-generated. Google Search cheap gas and check out the first sponsored link result, it reinforces the statement made here.

Crowdsourcing geo data requires a crowd, and it also requires powerful tools to create maps where a lot of information can be indexed, distributed and syndicated. There’s a few Google Maps mashups out there that offer enhanced map creation tools. Some tools develop social interactions around maps and others are focused on sharing and collaborating. Click2Map (yeah that’s us) offers a means to easily manage heavy loads of geographic data, a perfect tool for professional purposes.

In this era of New Gas Conscious, Distance Conscious Marketing, maps are on the edge of being a much sought-after result in SERPs. Marketers beware.

How to Save Gas and Time With Google Maps