

Watch Google Map Edits Live - NathanKP
http://www.google.com/mapmaker/pulse

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Acorn
It's a shame that people contribute data to Google Maps when something like
Open Street Maps exists.

If I'm going to spend the time it takes to map something, I'd much rather it
go into an open source project rather than just improving the product of a
for-profit company.

<http://www.openstreetmap.org/>

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NathanKP
I would say it is probably because Google makes it very easy to edit maps and
it offers navigation. Open Street Map doesn't allow you to enter two addresses
and find a route between them. (At least not as far as I can tell.) Therefore
if you are living in an area where you want that ability and your local area
is not yet mapped, you will map it in Google, not in Open Street Map.

Additionally if you are a business owner you are going to add your business to
the map that has more users and searchers. There is little if any benefit to
having your business mapped in Open Street Map, whereas having it on the
Google Map could potentially bring some customers to you.

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aw3c2
OSM is the data. It is not the example map rendering on openstreetmap.org. Sad
but true. I wish there was no map at all but instead a selection of nice
looking and more useful maps listed.

For routing give these a try:

<http://map.project-osrm.org/>

<http://open.mapquest.com/>

<http://maps.cloudmade.com/>

<http://openrouteservice.org/>

Compared to proper editors the Google map maker thing is horrifying. I tried
to use it once and gave up because it just did not do what I was trying to do
(adding 3 simply streets).

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AndyJPartridge
<http://openrouteservice.org/>

The was the only one that opened upon a map over me :-)

~~~
aw3c2
That is bad (especially because I personally like that one the least). Could
you share details about your configuration?

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aw3c2
Watch OpenStreetMap Edits Live: <http://datenkueche.com/osmlive/>

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buro9
What I learned whilst watching this for 5 minutes, was that a lot of escort
agencies use Google Maps and Google Earth to advertise.

I don't know how maps are classified, and whether data about businesses are
adverts or just facts about places. But in the UK adverts have to be "legal,
decent, honest and truthful, to the benefit of consumers, business and
society".

As such, it opened up a whole new world of spam-fighting to me. Google must be
scrubbing this dataset as quickly as others add stuff.

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nkassis
I hope they replace the Google earth plugin with WebGL at some point. Kind of
annoying having to install a plugin for this.

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NathanKP
I think it is incredible to see all the edits going on all around the world,
and to see how Google is leveraging its huge reach to get its users to name
roads and fill in businesses all over the world, even in remote areas.

~~~
mtogo
And how sad it is that those edits are going to google maps instead of OSM.

~~~
NathanKP
That is over-dramatic in my opinion. Google Maps is a good tool: it works
well, and is already more complete than OSM is. Therefore I would rather see
one extremely complete map than two half complete maps. In my opinion there is
nothing sad about a good map getting better.

~~~
aw3c2
Think about it. OpenStreetMap is free data. You can make your own maps, your
own selection of data, data analysis, your own routing, you can contribute and
the changes are live within minutes, you can provide free maps to people, you
can use open source software to edit.

From Google you only get whatever they decide they want to give.

Could you give examples what you mean by complete? POIs? In that case Google
has a lot of leverage. Street/way-wise OpenStreetMap is vastly superior in
many if not most cases at least here in Europe (not to mention countries where
there is no monetary interest for Google).

~~~
NathanKP
When I say complete I mean the entire system, from satellite imagery, to
street view, to navigation directions. Additionally I am referring to the
design polish that ties all these pieces together.

From what I have seen OSM is a lot like Android, open source, but fragmented
because of it. Google Maps, while closed source, is much more polished and
feature rich compared with anything I've seen based on OSM.

To be clear I certainly want OSM to grow to greatness, and it would wonderful
if it was just as powerful and feature rich as Google Maps. I agree with you
that OSM is a great project, and I like the open source aspect of it. That's
not my argument though. My basic argument in the parent comment was that I
think it is an over reaction to say it is "sad" to see the edits going to
Google.

Whether Google's map is getting better or OSM's map is getting better people
who use the systems are benefiting, so there is nothing sad about edits made
to either system. And Google Maps has a much larger user base than OSM, hence
it is more practical for business owners to tag their businesses in Google
Maps, and people to add their streets to Google Maps.

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breck
Just ate a sandwich while watching this. It was stimulating.

If you ever have some time to kill when you can't use your hands, this is a
cool thing to watch.

~~~
featherless
Hah, just did the exact same thing with a chocolate cupcake.

