Oh Where is Washington, NC? How to Fix a Google Map Error

Egregious mapping errors occur a lot less these days on Google Maps. While roads are still being lost or misnamed in New Jersey, we have seen no lost towns and misplaced communities like we saw in 2009 and 2010. And truth be told the problem with roads in New Jersey may be just a reflection of …

Continue reading

Google MapMaker Update Summary: One Database to Rule Them All

Now that MapMaker is back online, I wanted to understand the recent changes to MapMaker in the bigger context, how the changes related to the Places for Business Dashboard, the G+ Pages for Local and when it still makes sense to use MapMaker. I asked Dan Austin to write up his understanding of the changes from …

Continue reading

Google MapMaker Back Online – What has changed?

Google MapMaker is back on line after having been down for several days. What has changed? Commenter George noted that that it is once again showing SABs hidden addresses. Probably a bug. The other obvious change is that it no longer is accepting custom categories. What else have you noticed? Here is the post that …

Continue reading

Google MapMaker Going Offline for Upgrades

This was posted in the MapMaker (thanks to TC Treebles for the heads up) forums this afternoon. It is highly unusual for Google to take a product offline, even if temporarily, ever. The idea of getting rid of whacked out bots and having a single, authoritative single repository for all location data is significant. Planned Map …

Continue reading

Step by Step Guide to Enhancing Multi-lingual Listings on Google MapMaker

Google has never fully supported multi-lingual listings in Places very well. At one point Google was suggesting that you create a separate listing in a different dashboard in the alternative language. Unfortunately Google was unable to keep those listings from merging and the practice was ultimately prohitibited. The current dashboard offers no real alternative. MapMaker …

Continue reading

Microsoft Buys Nokia – What will become of Navteq/Here?

Microsoft bought Nokia today for $7.2 billion dollars. Nokia, you will recall, bought Navteq in 2007 for $8.1 billion in what was hailed at the time as pivotal move by Nokia into location based services. But as Horace Dediu pointed out,  by late 2012 Navteq had been losing about $1 billion a year for Nokia …

Continue reading

An Easier MapMaker Interface

In a recent comment Jeffrey Manger noted that “FYI the Mapmaker interface totally blows. What a confusing, ineffective, waste of my time. Maybe there is written instructions in a booklet somewhere on how to actually use this thing.” I totally agree that the standard MapMaker interface is a total kludge. Only the most persistent and …

Continue reading

Google Local: Train Wreck at the Junction

Google Local is a veritable train wreck for business listing management. The Dashboard is in a state of non functioning disrepair, the + Page path to listing management is full of bugs. The current business types supported by the feature set in the +Page environment is extremely limited. The rules for business listings in MapMaker …

Continue reading