{"id":3228,"date":"2009-05-11T14:18:54","date_gmt":"2009-05-11T18:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=3228"},"modified":"2009-05-11T14:19:19","modified_gmt":"2009-05-11T18:19:19","slug":"google-map-it-is-the-best-of-times-it-is-the-worst-of-timesswine-flu-and-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/11\/google-map-it-is-the-best-of-times-it-is-the-worst-of-timesswine-flu-and-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Map: It is the best of times, it is the worst of times…Swine Flu and Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google Maps has been an exhilarting product allowing many to gain a better understanding of the world around them with constant innovation. Sergey Brin noted in his annual Google Founder’s letter<\/a> that “after the launch of Google Map Maker in Pakistan, users mapped 25,000 kilometers of uncharted road in just two months”. That’s pretty cool stuff.\u00a0It has also been a product that seems to bring out the worst in people looking to gain a leg up with spamming and hijackings.<\/p>\n

\"swinefly-ny-ny\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Swine Flu epidemic is a perfect case in point and it shows the contradictions in Maps in bold relief. Google Maps was used to track the spread of the epidemic <\/a>\u00a0around the world. The \u00a0major press and a bevy of blogs widely covered<\/a> this \u00a0beneficial \u00a0use of Maps that helped inform and educate.<\/p>\n

But given that Maps is open and easily open to abuse, there are now searches like Swine Flu NY, NY<\/a> that return spam in Maps of the most exploitive sorts. SafetyGearandMore.com were not the only ones to utilize Maps for their commercial advantage as several others across the US<\/a>\u00a0did as well. As Dickens noted<\/a> in The Tale of Two Cities:<\/p>\n

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.<\/dt>\n
Charles Dickens<\/strong>,\u00a0A Tale of Two Cities<\/em>
\nEnglish novelist (1812 – 1870)<\/em><\/dd>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google Maps has been an exhilarting product allowing many to gain a better understanding of the world around them with constant innovation. Sergey Brin noted in his annual Google Founder’s letter that “after the launch of Google Map Maker in Pakistan, users mapped 25,000 kilometers of uncharted road in just two months”. That’s pretty cool …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-maps-google-local"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t