Comments on: Google Maps: Geo Data Quality & Time to Fix

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:55:27 +0000

Mike: Not sure about the impact of Google losing Washington DC. In the real world, though, if it was lost, the biggest impact would be an incredible reduction of political hot air.

Global warming would be drastically reduced. You would be X-country skiing into late May.

By: Mike Blumenthal

Mike Blumenthal — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:36:46 +0000

@Earl

It was a reasonable turn around. Not sure how fast they would work if they lost your town

Yahoo, Bing & Mapquest all use Navteq. One assumes if one is right the others would be too.

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 18:28:24 +0000

BTW: Didn’t check originally but checked today. yahoo has accurate directions. Per the report it stated that Yahoo directions were also originally inaccurate

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 06:23:20 +0000

Thanks, penquinopus:

The corrected directions take one off the not finished Intercounty Connector, seriously lengthen the trip, put people on the incredibly crowded 495 Beltway around DC and up North on Rte 270 from its intersection with the Beltway. Damn longer and subject to tremendous traffic…..but damn accurate.

IMHO, the 4 day turnaround…considering that 2 of the days were a weekend was a positive response by Google.

By: penguinopus

penguinopus — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:25:41 +0000

It’s fixed.

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:01:05 +0000

Checked into it again this morning with directions from Baltimore. Google maps again took me to a non/intersection with mud and an unopened road.

Turn the clock on, Mike. Start the ticking. How long will it take Google to fix this problem. Its already over 3 days/ 72 hours since reported by the Baltimore Sun.

By: SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 28, 2011

SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 28, 2011 — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:03:09 +0000

[...] Google Maps: Geo Data Quality & Time to Fix, Mike Blumenthal [...]

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 19:26:57 +0000

Mike: Just to quantify the size of the issue: There are probably abt 1/2 million residents in Northern Montgomery County and abt 30 million square feet of office space/ with additional hotels and serious destination points in that region including major federal govt. health and regulatory offices.

That is damn big. It gets a lot of traffic. There will be a lot of mistakes as a result of this information foul up.

Remember that clock you had ticking quantifying the amount of time it took for Google to respond to a question? I’d set it again.

By: earlpearl

earlpearl — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:43:11 +0000

I’m from that area, Mike. Per the Baltimore Sun both Yahoo and Google have it currently wrong. I just checked in google and its still wrong.

It is a high trafficked route. Once the InterCounty Connector is finished it will divert an enormous amount of traffic from a dense population and business sector in Montgomery County to I-95 North to Baltimore and many points North.

A major mistake in my book. As with so many mistakes in Google, many many people will migrate to their directions. One commentator in the Baltimore Sun article already said they were misdirected…and its only been since Saturday.

The sooner they correct it the better. Somebody, somewhere with some clout should be leaning on Google.

I’d set the clock again to see how long it takes before Google corrects this big snag

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:27:06 +0000

@Adam
Mapping the world is no simple task. Doing so with little human intervention is even more difficult. Google is attempting to “go where no man has gone before” in assembling their Maps via computer, Streetview data, third party data & UGC. From where I sit, they have done an incredible job of it.

That being said, it doesn’t necessarily make the product fit for daily use by the public particularly when it comes to safety. Is it good enough? What is good enough? Who should be held responsible? The user? Google? How long should it take to fix? Should we as a concerned citizenry be concerned? And if so, should the government regulate or should Google just improve their private practices to some standard?