As often happens lately, I had no intention of writing about anything in the news due to lack of interest. However, Marc Prolieau wrote an article this morning on the rumor that Facebook would pay one billion dollars for Waze, and then wrote me to ask my thoughts. I, then, saw an article berating Google for not being the company that was buying Waze. It was at that point that I began thinking that I must have missed some major development at Waze. In turn, this idea prompted me to do some research and write a commentary on the potential acquisition.

In the spirit of openness, I was contacted by someone representing themselves as Facebook’s “location” guy shortly after my blog about the problems associated with the release of Apple Maps in 2012. We never connected. So, I do not have any contacts at Facebook, nor do I have any contacts at Waze with whom I am in communication. Also, in the spirit of openness, I thought about titling this essay “Startup Crowd-Sources Corporate Value.” So, let’s get going.

Waze describes itself as follows:

“After typing in their destination address, users just drive with the app open on their phone to passively contribute traffic and other road data, but they can also take a more active role by sharing road reports on accidents, police traps, or any other hazards along the way, helping to give other users in the area a ‘heads-up’ about what’s to come.”

“In addition to the local communities of drivers using the app, Waze is also home to an active community of online map editors who ensure that the data in their areas is as up-to-date as possible.”

At the end is a video, which can be linked to from the above referenced About Us page on the Waze website. The video ends with a note to this effect – “Keep in mind that Waze is a driver-generated service. Just, as other user-generated projects, it depends on user participation. Your patience and participation are essential.”

I don’t know about you, but if Waze is going to pick up a billion bucks based on my labor, I’d want more than a note indicating that my participation and patience were essential to their success. However, the more interesting question is whether or not Waze is worth $1,000,000,000.00.

To get my arms around valuing Waze I decided to go through a brief acquisition checklist

What is it that is worth a billion dollars at Waze?

Brand? No.

Waze is minor brand that remains generally unknown around the world. I think it might be difficult to put a high valuation on a company whose product is crowd-sourced and whose brand represents the industrious endeavors and lacks of its audience. Note that use of “lacks” here does not indicate that these people are dolts, rather that the user profile is likely not uniform (standardized) or distributed uniformly across geographical space. In turn, this suggests that the product is not uniformly accurate across that same space. As a consequence, the brand’s value may exhibit a significant spatial and temporal variation.

Distribution/Users ? No.

Wikipedia claims that Waze was downloaded 12 million times worldwide by January 2012 and 20 million times by July 2012. By the end of 2012, according to Waze, that number had increased to 36 million drivers. Today, there are apparently 44 million users. To be honest, I am not sure how to parse the information on downloads. Downloads do not indicate active users. The notion of downloads, also, does not indicate geographic coverage or the ability to harvest GPS traces or active crowdsourced updates in specific geographies.

Next, I am not sure how Waze measures users, nor was I able to find any definitive source for this information. I doubt that it has 44 million active users. An article in the Huffington Post indicates that Berg Insight, a Swedish market research firm, says Waze has from 12 million to 13 million monthly active users. If Berg Insight is correct, then the Waze contributors are likely spread thin on a worldwide basis and likely concentrated in a modest number of large urban areas. In addition, how long the active users of Waze have been contributing GPS traces or active updates would appear to be time limited based on the reported number of users and the growth of the company.

So distribution remains unknown, except, perhaps, to Waze. However, even if they could validate the number of reliable active users, it remains unclear how those users are distributed across the geographical space of Waze’s target markets.

Finally, another problem is the type of driving usually performed by Waze users. Are the majority of the miles traced those showing a repetitive journey to work five days a week? I suspect this is a large portion of the tracks they receive. If this is true, then their distribution is likely quite limited in terms of the uniformity and the extent of geographic coverage.

Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets, Know-how? No.

Waze has 100 employees. I am sure that they are bright, energetic and extremely capable. I doubt that what they may know, have codified, filed as patent applications or hold as trade secrets is worth anything near a billion dollars. After all, it is not that other people are ignorant on the topic of how to build a crowdsourced mapping system.

Map Database? No.

Waze claims that in 2012 its users made 500 million map edits and upgraded the map to reflect 1.7 million changes on-the-ground that took place in 110 countries with community-edited maps. Ok, just what does this stuff really mean?

Updates may merely reflect the poor quality of a map base or even the lack of a map base available to Waze for its customers use. The number of countries involved does not necessarily indicate that the company has complete, up-to-date coverage in any of these countries. More problematically, I suspect that Waze has no objective method of assessing the accuracy of its maps compared to other sources. For those of you who need a short primer on Spatial Data Quality, see my blog on the Apple Maps fiasco, as this is the reason they got a failing grade on their product roll out.

Again, the issue here is how many users have been contributing GPS traces and active edits and over what period of time. It appears to me that the time horizon of Waze is too short to have created a map database of considerable value.

Other Assets (intangibles)? No.

Waze has some uniquely capable people and assets, but, for me, they do not tip the scales at a billion dollars.

Is the whole worth more than the sum of the parts? No.

I just can’t get to the billion dollar number no matter how I combine the basic facts. I have read the articles indicating that Facebook needs its own map base so it can customize it for mobile advertising, or that it needs its own map database in order to compete in the mobile location market. I suppose a company can convince itself of anything and Facebook may have crossed the chasm based on these types of assumption. If so, I think they are wandering in a labyrinth of strategic blunders.

Yes, they could wind-up with their own map database, but I suspect that with this purchase will from day one be a headache in terms of spatial data quality. Facebook will spend more money fixing and tuning the Waze database than if they had licensed a database from Nokia or TomTom or from a collection of companies, as has Apple. In turn, the adoption of their “mapping product” by the market might be significantly delayed.

The more serious issue is that dealing with the quality of the Waze database and integrating the database with other Facebook applications will subtract cycles from their efforts in areas that are core to building a successful Facebook mobile business. In the end, Facebook will come down with a serious case of buyer’s remorse, as they will eventually ask the question “Why wasn’t anyone else willing to pay a billion dollars for Waze?

In a final check of the Waze site tonight I noticed that the Waze homepage (http://www.waze.com/) redirects to http://world.waze.com/?redirect=1 , which is a complete and absolute blank. Perhaps the deal is done. Or, it might simply be a map tribute to Lewis Carroll.

Best,

Mike

The following blog is a concise, non-illustrated version of a keynote address I gave at the North Caroline GIS conference last month in Raleigh, NC.

There is little doubt that Google has created an incredibly successful mapping product, but it is at this point that the law of unintended consequences may occur and diminish not only the success of Google Maps, but also hinder mapping and GIS in the wider world.

Let’s start by looking at what I mean by “unintended consequences.” In simple terms an unintended consequence is not a purposive action, it is an outcome. Outcomes can be positive, such as a windfall. Outcomes can be negative, such as a detriment. Or, results can be perverse, in which case the outcome is contrary to what was expected. My focus in this blog is on the negative outcomes, although some may typify them as a case of the glass half-full.

The romantic notion that cartographers wandered the world with charts and map tables so they could compile map data as they explored is the stuff of history. For countless decades map publishers have created map manuscripts by compiling data collected from sources that were considered authoritative and it is this model that Google had adopted. From a practical perspective, it is impossible for any single company to map the entire world at a street and road level without the help of contributors from the public sector, private sector and ordinary citizen scientists interested in maps, geography and transportation.

It is my belief that Google, due to the success of its search engine and the pursuit of its corporate mission “…to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”, has been unusually successful in convincing authoritative sources around the world to allow Google to use their data in its mapping products. In some cases this has involved licensing or use agreements, and Google has advantaged itself by integrating data from sources that it considers the “best of breed” to enhance its products.

Most of these “trusted” sources are “official sources”, such as the USGS, the Bureau of the Census and other governmental agencies at all levels of administration from around the world. In areas where Google has been unable to reach agreement to use specific data, or in those locations where “trusted” data does not exist, it has relied on its own industrious endeavors to compile these data, although it has been helped tremendously by crowdsourcing.

It is clear to me that Google turned to licensing and crowdsourcing to remedy the unpalatable variations in the levels of spatial data quality in the map data that were supplied to it in the years when Google Maps was primarily based on data licensed from Tele Atlas (now TomTom) and Navteq (now Nokia). It appears that Google’s transition to able compilers of navigation quality map databases has been quite successful. However, I wonder if this success is not unlike the magnificent willow tree with a tremendous girth and abundant leaves on massive flowing branches, but slowly dying of decay from the inside.

Google’s move into GIS by providing the power of the GoogleBase as a GIS engine is an attractive notion to many organizations and for good reason. However, people who are responsible for funding budgets in these organizations (such as legislators) are beginning to ask these overly simplified questions: “Why are we paying people to do this mapping stuff when Google is giving it away from free? “Can’t we just use their data?” I am sure you are all thinking, “Nobody could be that shortsighted.” I guess you have not spent much time with politicians.

Recent events have led me to conclude that Google has now realized this very flaw in its approach to mapping. Did any of you think it was unusual that Google released two different strategic studies recently showing the economic benefits of Geospatial data (see 1 at end of blog). You know, Google is always releasing its strategic studies. Why the last one I can remember was in …..hmmmm?

In a study commissioned by Google and carried out by the Boston Consulting Group, it was indicated that the U.S. Geospatial industry generated $73 billion in revenues in 2011, comprised 500,000 jobs and throughout the greater U.S. economy helped drive an additional $1.6 trillion in revenue and $1.4 trillion in cost savings during the same period.

A second study by Oxera was equally interesting and focused on the direct effects, positive externalities, consumer effects and wider economic effects, including the gross value added effect of “Geo services.” One section of this report that caught my eye was a discussion (page 15) of Geo services as an intermediate good – one that is not normally valuable in themselves, “…but help consumers engage in other activities.” When discussing the “economic characteristics of Geo” the Oxera report indicates (page 5) that, “This question is relevant because it has implications for the rationale for public funding of certain parts of the value chain and for the market structure of other parts.”

Neither of the released reports (at least in the form they were published) mentions Google, its mapping business or how these studies should be viewed by the Google-ettes.

While Google may have had many reasons for funding these two reports, I think that the “law of unintended consequences” is rearing its head in Google land. If the public/governmental sources that provide data to Google through license can no longer afford to produce the data because their funding sources thinks that collecting and presenting map data is something that can be handled better in the private sector (such as Google is doing), the data underpinnings of the geospatial world will start to collapse. Yes, I know that Google does not do what its licensors do with spatial data, but have you seen the decision tree of a politician who really understands the complexities of GIS and mapping, why they cost so much, take so long and can’t be shared through the enterprise?

OK – let’s turn to crowdsourcing. While Google did not invent crowdsourcing, it certainly knows how to use it to its advantage. Now that its users are willing to compile and correct the Google Mapbase for free, how will anyone else in the business make money compiling data using a professional team of map data compilers? The economics weigh against it and it may be a practice whose time has come and gone. The reasons for this are, in their entirety, more complex than I have described. However, without developing the argument more in this essay, I will simply skip ahead to my conclusion, which is that professional map database compilers are an endangered species. It is likely that their “retirement” will not be noticed – at least not until crowdsourcing falls out of vogue, as it will, when people begin wondering why Google cannot afford to keep its own damn maps up-to-date.

As all of you know, maps are near and dear to my heart. The problem of unintended consequences in regards to Google and crowdsourcing to GIS and mapping are nearly as worrisome to me as the planet-wide loss of electricity. I’m going to squirrel away a cache of paper maps, just in case. Laugh if you want, but when you need to buy one from me you will begin to understand the meaning of monopoly, as well as to really appreciate the concept of unintended consequences.

1. Links to both studies can be found in this article at Directions Magazine

http://apb.directionsmag.com/entry/google-shares-oxeras-report-on-impact-of-geospatial-services-on-the-wo/306916

UPDATE September 24, 2012: The Comment Cycle for the following entry is now closed. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.

I had a call from Marc Prioleau of Prioleau Advisors this morning and speaking with him prompted me to look into the uproar over Apple’s problems with its new mapping application. So, this column is Marc’s fault. Send any criticisms to him (just kidding). While you are at it, blame Duane Marble who sent me several articles on Apple’s mapping problems from sources around the world.

In my June blog on Apple and Mapping , I postulated that the company would find building a high quality mapping application very difficult to accomplish. Among the points I made were these:

• However, it is not (mapping) San Francisco that will give Apple heartburn. Providing quality map coverage over the rest of the world is another matter completely.

• Currently Apple lacks the resources to provide the majority of geospatial and POI data required for its application.

• My overall view of the companies that it (Apple) has assembled to create its application is that they are, as a whole, rated “C-grade” suppliers.

• Apple seems to plan on using business listing data from Acxiom and Localeze (a division of Neustar), supplemented by reviews from Yelp. I suspect that Apple does not yet understand what a headache it will be to integrate the information from these three disparate sources.

• While Apple is not generating any new problems by trying to fuse business listings data, they have stumbled into a problem that suffers from different approaches to localization, lack of postal address standards, lack of location address standards and general incompetence in rationalizing data sources.

• Apple lacks the ability to mine vast amounts of local search data, as Google was able to do when it started its mapping project.

Unfortunately for Apple, all of these cautions appear to have come true. So much for the past.

In this blog, after setting the scene, I will suggest what Apple needs to do to remedy the problems of their mapping service.

Given the rage being shown by IOS 6 users, Apple failed to hurdle the bar that was in front of them. I have spent several hours poring over the news for examples of the types of failures and find nothing unexpected in the results. Apple does not have a core competency in mapping and has not yet assembled the sizable, capable team that they will eventually need if they are determined to produce their own mapping/navigation/local search application.

Perhaps the most egregious error is that Apple’s team relied on quality control by algorithm and not a process partially vetted by informed human analysis. You cannot read about the errors in Apple Maps without realizing that these maps were being visually examined and used for the first time by Apple’s customers and not by Apple’s QC teams. If Apple thought that the results were going to be any different than they are, I would be surprised. Of course, hubris is a powerful emotion.

If you go back over this blog and follow my recounting of the history of Google’s attempts at developing a quality mapping service, you will notice that they initially tried to automate the entire process and failed miserably, as has Apple. Google learned that you cannot take the human out of the equation. While the mathematics of mapping appear relatively straight forward, I can assure you that if you take the informed human observer who possesses local and cartographic knowledge out of the equation that you will produce exactly what Apple has produced – A failed system.

The issue plaguing Apple Maps is not mathematics or algorithms, it is data quality and there can be little doubt about the types of errors that are plaguing the system. What is happening to Apple is that their users are measuring data quality. Users look for familiar places they know on maps and use these as methods of orienting themselves, as well as for testing the goodness of maps. They compare maps with reality to determine their location. They query local businesses to provide local services. When these actions fail, the map has failed and this is the source of Apple’s most significant problems. Apple’s maps are incomplete, illogical, positionally erroneous, out of date, and suffer from thematic inaccuracies.

Perhaps Apple is not aware that data quality is a topic that professional map makers and GIS professionals know a lot about. In more formal terms, the problems that Apple is facing are these:

Completeness – Features are absent and some features that are included seem to have erroneous attributes and relationships. I suspect that as the reporting goes on, we will find they Apple has not only omissions in their data, but also errors of commission where the same feature is represented more than once (usually due to duplication by multiple data providers).

Logical Consistency – the degree of adherence to logical rules of data structure, attribution and relationships. There are a number of sins included here, but the ones that appear to be most vexing to Apple are compliance to the rules of conceptual schema and the correctness of the topological characteristics of a data set. An example of this could be having a store’s name, street number and street name correct, but mapping it in the wrong place (town).

Positional Accuracy – is considered the closeness of a coordinate value to values accepted as being true.

Temporal Accuracy – particularly in respect to temporal validity – are the features that they map still in existence today?

Thematic Accuracy – particularly in respect to non-quantitative attribute correctness and classification correctness.

When you build your own mapping and POI databases from the ground up (so to speak), you attempt to set rules for your data structure that enforce the elements of data quality described above. When you assemble a mapping and POI database from suppliers who operate with markedly different data models, it is unwise to assume that simple measures of homogenization will remedy the problems with disparate data. Apple’s data team seems to have munged together data from a large set of sources and assumed that somehow they would magically “fit”. Sorry, but that often does not happen in the world of cartography. Poor Apple has no one to blame but themselves.

Recommendations

1. Unfortunately for Apple, they need to take a step back and re-engineer their approach to data fusion and mapping in general.

2. I suspect that the data and routing functionality that they have from TomTom, while not the best, is simply not the source of their problems. Their problem is that they thought they did not have a problem. From my perspective, this is the mark of an organization that does not have the experience or know-how to manage a large-scale mapping project. Apple needs to hire some experts in mapping and people who are experienced in mapping and understand the problems that can and do occur when compiling complex spatial databases designed for mapping, navigation and local search.

3. Apple does not have enough qualified people to fix this problem and needs to hire a considerable number of talented people who have the right credentials. They, also, need to develop a QA/QC team experience in spatial data. They could establish a team in Bangalore and steal workers from Google, but if they want to win, they need to take a different approach, because this is where Google can be beaten.

4. Apple appears not to have the experience in management to control the outcome of their development efforts. They need to hire someone who knows mapping, management and how to build winning teams.

5. Apple needs to get active in crowdsourcing. They must find a way to harness local knowledge and invite their users to supply local information, or at least lead them to the local knowledge that is relevant. This could be accomplished by setting up a service similar to Google Map Maker. However, it could also be accomplished by buying TomTom, and using its MapShare service as part of the mapping application to improve the quality of data. I think something like Map Share would appeal to the Apple user community.

6. Speaking of acquisitions, Apple could buy one of a number of small companies that integrate mapping and search services into applications for use by telephone carriers. The best of these, Telmap, was snapped up by Intel earlier this year, but other companies might be able to do the job. Perhaps Telenav? Hey, here is an interesting idea – how about ALK, now being run by Barry Glick who founded MapQuest?

7. I suppose Apple will want to hire Bain or some other high power consulting group to solve this problem. That would be the biggest mistake they have made yet, but it is one that big business seems to make over and over. As an alternative, I suggest that Apple look to people who actually know something about these applications.

Conclusions

There is no really quick fix for Apple’s problems in this area, but this should not be news to anyone who is familiar with mapping and the large scale integration of data that has a spatial component.

Of course there appears nowhere to go but up for Apple in mapping. I wish them the greatest of success and suggest that they review this blog for numerous topics that will be of assistance to them.

If you want to know more about map data quality see ISO (International Organization of Standardization), Technical Committee 211. 2002. ISO 19113, Geographic Information – Quality principles. Geneva, Switzerland: ISO. Available online from http://www.isotc211.org/

And, I urge Apple to keep a sense of humor about these problems, as have some of its users. I had a great laugh at a comment about Apple’s mistaking a farm in Ireland as an airport. The comment was “Not only did #Apple give us #iOS6… They also gave us a new airport off the Upper Kilmacud Road! Yay!”

Until next time.

UPDATE on September 24, 2012. I have closed the comments period for the Apple Maps Blog. Thanks to all who have contributed.

Mike

At last! We are close to delivering our final report to the US Census Bureau on their Master Address File and I now have time to devote to one of my favorite pastimes – writing blogs for Exploring Local. Hooray. What this means in consultant speak is that I am “on the beach” or between assignments, although truth be told, I am not looking very hard for anything to do for a while. I have my personal projects all laid out.

Over the last few weeks I have read a number of articles about maps and mapping that have renewed my interest in what’s going on in the profession. I guess that is something of a misstatement, since there a no longer enough people who actually are cartographers to make a profession, at least one that has any hopes of future growth. However, not to worry. Alexis C. Madrigal, a noted madrigal singer, oops I meant a the senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Technology Channel, recently wrote a marketing piece, oops I meant an “even-handed” review of the encyclopedia of all cartographic wisdom – Google Maps. His article “How Google Builds Its Maps – and What It Means for the Future of Everything” is a monumental tribute to revisionist history.

I suspect that The Atlantic magazine will soon be renamed “The Atlantic & Pacific”, since Googleland appears to be the heart of the cartographic universe. While reading the article I thought “Wow, he gets paid for writing this crap” and as I read further, I began to wonder “But who pays him?” The entire read resembled a poorly thought out advertorial.

I guess Apple’s entry into the mapping arms race has the big “Goog” upset and they decided to get ahead of the curve by bringing in a cub reporter, who knew little about mapping, to whom they could show why Apple doesn’t have a chance. Why Googs did not make these stunning revelations to a writer from a real tech magazine is an interesting question, but one to which we all know the answer. Madrigal’s article was enough to make me want to change my opinion of the problems that Apple must overcome to be a player in this venue. Well, let’s start down that road by focusing on the startling new truths that Google revealed to Mr. Madrigal about the world of mapping.

I know that it may be hard for some of you to realize that mapping was not discovered by Google. Last February I was examining a floor-mosaic–map in Madaba Jordan that dated from the 6th century AD that was designed to show pilgrims the layout of the Holy Lands. I can assure you that it did not have the Google’s copyright notice anywhere on it and I can, also, assure that it was not particularly old as maps go.

It may come as a further shock to you that Google did not invent map projections, including the one they use, nor did they invent tiling, symbolization, generalization, decluttering, zooming, panning, layers, levels, satellite imagery, map tiling, crowd-sourcing (both active and passive), their uniquely named “Atlas tool”, as well as most everything else associated with Google Maps. Even Google’s Street View had its origins in robotic sensing systems developed to enhance computer vision research, although Google, with the help of Sebastian Thrun, was smart enough to figure out how it could give them a competitive advantage in compiling street maps.

Where to start on the Madrigal article? How about the byline that reads “An exclusive look inside Ground Truth (no, Google did not invent this either), the secretive program to build the world’s best accurate map” Phew, I was glad to learn that Google was not attempting to build the world’s worst accurate map. I had hoped that the Googie was going to attempt to build the world’s most accurate map, but I guess that they just wanted the world to know that what they were building would be “bester” than whatever Apple could supply.

Did you notice the secret information the former NASA rocket scientist who was mentioned in the article told Madrigal? It was a howler, as a matter of fact it sounded like something I wrote in a blog when I was being snarky about Google. Anway, here is the exclusive/secret info from the horse’s mouth that was revealed exclusively the Madrigal of The Atlantic
–
“So you want to make a map,” Weiss-Malik tells me as we sit down in front of a massive monitor. “There are a couple of steps. You acquire data through partners. You do a bunch of engineering on that data to get it into the right format and conflate it with other sources of data, and then you do a bunch of operations, which is what this tool is about, to hand massage the data. And out the other end pops something that is higher quality than the sum of its parts.”

Wow was that informative. Before we go any further, I would like to note that Mr. Madrigal might have received a better education on Google Maps by reading this blog than visiting Google, but then that would be shameless self-promotion. So, will you tell him instead?

For some reason the opening figure in my copy of the article is a photo of two people playing ping pong. That had me stumped for a while, as I could not figure out what it had to do with project “Ground Truth”. Well, it still has me stumped, but I am working on it. I thought we might get a photo of a person at a workstation with a map on a monitor and details of the environment at the Google Maps office in Mountain View, CA. Apparently ping-pong is more interesting and newsworthy and the great Googs was not about to reveal any detailed information about how they compile maps to Mr. Madrigal.

I was more than mildly surprised that Madrigal seemed not to understand that there was more to Google Maps, or any map for the matter, than meets the eye. How did he think that routing occurs? Did he really believe the “Men in Black” idea that there were tiny aliens inside Google servers that supplied routes on demand as they were requested? Does he know that computerized routing has been around on a commercial basis since the early 1970s? Did he ever hear of Barry Glick, the founder of MapQuest, hawking online routing capabilities before Google was founded? Does he have any idea what NAVTEQ does with its highly instrumented vans and imaging systems? Has he ever looked at Bing Maps, or the hundreds of other services out there that provide competition to Google in the mapping sector? Put more simply, did the author of this article have the least little bit of inquisitiveness about what Google was telling him? My conclusion is a big, “Nope.”

I was, also, stunned to read Manic (okay, that’s supposed to be Manik) Gupta’s comment that the information in offline real word in which we live is not entirely online. When did this happen? Why is it allowed? Wow, this is beginning to sound like a science fiction thriller where there is no distinction between offline and online. Maybe Google really is an earth changing company, in more ways than we realize. Hopefully Tom Cruise will play the part of Gupta in the movie version of this thriller.

Gupta’s follow-up quote was even better – “Increasingly as we go about our lives, we are trying to bridge that gap between what we see in the real world and [the online world] and Maps really plays that part.” Hmmm. I had always thought that maps were a representation of the real world, and not the original thing. Based on the Madrigal article, it appears that he thinks that maps can and should serve as the real world. I guess Mr. Madrigal may not understand the real nature of project “Ground Truth”, or the use-warnings Google puts on their map and routes. I don’t know about you, but I have heard that trusting ground truth is usually a better strategy than ignoring it and trusting its representation, whether that representation is online, printed, in a box on your dash, in your phone, hiding in the ether while encoded in a radio wave, or packed as a new innovation labeled “Ground Truth” created by Google (and thousands of people before them).

I smiled when I read that Madrigal was stunned to learn that humans were involved in Google’s map making process. Yes. Humans are apparently needed to remedy problems that software cannot seem to solve. Imagine, data compiled from various sources that does not quite fit. Is that possible? Hmmm. Did Google invent that too? And is using crowd-sourcing to mine knowledge another Google innovation? No, I don’t think so. Is there no end to Madrigal’s naiveté? Well, the answer to that also appears to be “no.”

I hope you noticed his comment that, “This is an operation that promotes perfectionism.” I, also, liked this one “The sheer amount of human effort that goes into Google Maps is just mind boggling.” Followed by this, “I came away convinced that the Geographic Data that Google has assembled is not likely to be matched by any other company.” Well, guys, apparently it’s time to give up on mapping. Google, according to Madrigal, appears to have thought every thought about mapping that could ever be thought. Well, maybe not.

I hope you noticed the section of the article with this comment, “The most telling moment for me came when we looked at couple of the several thousand user reports of problems with Google Maps that come in every day.” A couple of thousand error reports every day? Is that like saying Google Maps only has 347 million known errors left to remedy? Seems that just like most of us Google will not be the first to achieve perfection in mapping. If you read my series of about Google’s map correction program, you know more about this than Mr. Madrigal, so you should consider applying for his position at The Atlantic.

I wonder why there appeared to be only one workstation for Mr. Madrigal to observe in Mountain View? According to Madrigal’s article hundreds of operators are required to map a country and many of them are in Google’s Bangalore office. Hmmm, So much for local knowledge. In part this remoteness of operators from the geography they are editing is why there are so many errors on Google Maps. In addition, maybe all those Google-driven innovations in mapping don’t quite help when the sources that Google harvests contain incorrect information to begin with. Adding erroneous information the edit queue of an operator who must use other surrogate information to validate it can be a recipe for disaster, as Google has proven time and time again.

I do applaud Mr. Madrigal for realizing that Street View is an important distinction in the marketplace for mapping services. Whether Google is actually using Street View for all of the processes mentioned in the article is unclear to me. Didn’t it sound like something a VP would say when Brian McClendon indicated that, “…… We’re able to identify and make a semantic understanding of all the pixels we’ve acquired.”? Wow, that’s great, but do you think they really do this? Someone should send McClendon some articles to read on image processing, as well as some older texts on information theory – seems as if they are doing a lot of work they do not need to do. And how about the number of businesses, addresses and logos they have collected with Street View. If only they could create a comprehensive address database with this stuff, but they can’t because of footprint limitations related to the deployment of their Street View assets. However, whether Street View provides a sustainable competitive advantage is something that Apple, Microsoft, NAVTEQ and TomTom will have to decide. It may a competitive advantage today, but I can assure you that whether or not it is sustainable, will not depend on Google’s wants.

So to Apple and all the apparently second level mapping companies – Don’t give up the map race quite yet. The fact the Google thinks you can’t catch them may be the best news you have had this year.

Finally, shame on Google for participating in a public relations effort masquerading as a report on technological innovation. While I have great respect for what Google has achieved with Google Maps, the interview behind the Madrigal article was not designed to reveal any details on Google’s technological innovations in mapping. Instead, it was an interview strategically planned to denigrate Apple’s mapping capabilities by implying that it could not compete with the great Googie. Revealing old news to someone who did not have a background in mapping, GIS or navigation is pandering and something I had not expected from Google. Just what is it about Apple’s mapping program that has them so scared? Hmmm. Something to think about.

Hi everybody:

Just a brief note that there is an interview with yours truly on GPSBites. The interview is focused on seven questions related to LBS, GPS, Mapping and a couple on my company TeleMapics and the type of work we do. If you have time, give it a read.

Thanks,

Mike

I have been quite amused by all of the hoopla concerning Apple’s entry into the world of mapping and navigation. As I read the accolades pouring in as a result of the announcement, I could not help but wonder, “Do any of these people know anything about mapping?” Hmmm.

I watched a video of the “map” presentation at Apple’s WWDC and was struck by the fact that the presenter used the term “beautiful” to describe the map display on at least five separate occasions. Since my roots are in cartography, I appreciate a well-designed display, but only when the data represented on the display are a fair representation of the real-world. In other words, the most significant problem in creating a navigation/mapping application is data quality.

Yesterday, I read an article on CNN titled Apple’s Secret Weapon”, by John Brownlee. I thought it was an interesting an insightful view of what makes Apple great. Brownlee reasoned that it almost seems as if Steve Jobs and Apple created a time machine that allowed them to create products that are years ahead of their competitors. Brownlee hits the nail on the head when he indicates there is no “flux capacitor” at Apple, only the ability to actualize the, “…revolutionary, magical machines it dreams up.” Yes, iPod, iPhone, iPad, retina displays, etc. do show the ability of Apple to actualize dreams and make them realities that appeal to millions of potential purchasers.

Well, I guess this is true, if one is willing to make an exception for the mapping app that Apple intends to launch as a feature of IOS 6. Apple’s demonstration of the application at the WWDC showed little innovation and a lot of copying. However, since this is a software service, rather than a physical product, maybe Apple’s vaunted reputation for product development does not apply. After all, this is the company the brought you “Mobile Me”, a product that the even the late Steve Jobs described as, “Not our finest moment.”

It is my opinion that Apple decided to produce a mapping/routing/local search service on the basis of branding, not on the basis of this being an area in which the company possesses, or could ever hope to wield, a significant competitive advantage. Apple realized that it was losing brand recognition and revenue by using Google for its mapping needs and decided to bring in some “caulk” to stop the leak. The weakness with this approach is that Apple likely has little insight on what makes a great mapping application, or an appreciation that the development of a mapping application will be unlike anything else it has ever attempted. While its legions of designers and artists may be able to make the app beautiful, it is data quality and not image quality that is the major differentiator in the mapping arms race that they have entered.

Unfortunately, Apple has limited expertise in mapping, and may not understand the problems it faces. Further, it is unlikely to be able to “actualize” a new standard for navigation or local search that will reshape the industry in a manner that reflects Apple’s leading edge capabilities in function and design of products intended for the consumer electronics space. For those of you who are doubters, did you see anything in the WWDC demo of their mapping application that you have not seen before or of which you were completely unaware?

It is important to remember that what we saw at the WDDC was an early stage development representing San Francisco as a base. I wonder how many people were asked to QC that the map space before the demo? If I had a dollar for every time San Francisco was used for a map demo that I have personally witnessed, I would be a very rich man today. However, it is not San Francisco that will give Apple heartburn. Providing quality map coverage over the rest of the world is another matter completely.

Over the past three years, Apple has acquired several small companies that were focused on parts of the mapping equation (Placebase – GIS and database driven mapping, C3 – 3D imagery and mapping, Poly 9 – projection, web mapping). Note that these companies are not data companies. Currently Apple lacks the resources to provide the majority of geospatial and POI data required for its application. Traffic, however, will be based on the GPS paths recorded from iPhone users to build both historical and real-time models of traffic flows.

In order to develop its mapping application, Apple has scoured the world for content that would allow it to develop a comprehensive, up-to-date, map database with the coverage required to provide services to its worldwide markets. My overall view of the companies that it has assembled to create its application is that they are, rated as a whole, ”C-grade” suppliers. I have focused my comments on the two categories of suppliers described below, but note that their imagery and parcel data suppliers are of “A” quality.

Navigable Map Database Suppliers.

The data supplier of most importance to Apple is TomTom, a company providing the navigation database provided by Tele Atlas, which TomTom acquired in 2008. It is my sense that Tele Atlas has not prospered under TomTom ownership. TomTom’s fortunes declined as the market for PNDs unexpectedly, at least to TomTom, dropped shortly after the acquisition. Besides limiting the company’s expenditures on improving the quality and coverage of TomTom’s date, the drop in the amount of PND’s sold decreased the update data available to Tele Atlas for map compilation purposes from TomTom’s excellent Map Share product. Put another way, this is the company Google dumped because it was unhappy with the quality of the data delivered.

While TomTom through Map Share had the promise of revolutionizing the navigation map industry, the progress has not met the promise. Tele Atlas has lost many of its key employees and it is my impression that its data quality has declined since 2008. I question the use of Tele Atlas data as the backbone for the Apple mapping service. It may be that Apple felt that TomTom was the only viable alternative, since they had already ruled out the use of Google and Navteq is tied up with Nokia, although I suspect that association may soon change. Apple may learn the hard way that choosing data suppliers based on brand strategy and not data quality does not result in the best possible solution.

In coverage areas where TomTom does not have the appropriate data, it appears that Apple will turn to other suppliers such as DMTI, a company that does provide relatively high-quality data for Canada, or Map Data Sciences, a company providing quality data for Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately other map data suppliers involved, in my opinion, do not meet these same standards and I would expect Apple’s map data for much of the rest of the world to be lacking in detail, coverage and currentness.

I understand that Apple is planning to use Waze and perhaps OSM where appropriate (appropriate in this case likely means where TomTom does not have data). Those of you who have read other items in this blog know that I am a proponent of hybrid-crowdsourcing that blends traditional compilation techniques with both active and passive crowdsourcing. However, Apple does not have the assets to advantage themselves in this area and must rely instead on importing crowdsourced data that may not meet their standards. Time will tell, but a major issue that Apple must address is related to how the company works with its suppliers to update areas where users have noted errors.

I suspect TomTom will be responsive to making changes, as it needs the business. As most of you know, there is no organization behind crowd-sourced systems that can guarantee that a map error will be researched, recompiled and pushed to live in a specific amount of time. Of course, one of the things Apple has not revealed is how its database correction procedures will be implemented. Passing vectors to be rendered on the user device may portend a “live” mapping database behind the scenes at Apple Central, but as of now, this is conjecture on my part.

Business Listing Suppliers

Apple seems to plan on using business listing data from Acxiom and Localeze (a division of Neustar), supplemented by reviews from Yelp. I suspect that Apple does not yet understand what a headache it will be to integrate the information from these three disparate sources. Hopefully they will need to employ the readers of this blog to solve this problem, because it is one that can destroy the efficacy of their business strategy for mapping.

While Apple is not generating any new problems by trying to fuse business listings data, they have stumbled into a problem that suffers from different approaches to localization, lack of postal address standards, lack of location address standards and general incompetence in rationalizing data sources. But, hey, this is one area where having billions in the bank might help, at least it might help if you had some idea of what you were doing. As you may have gleaned from the tone of this blog I am not sure Apple understands the mess it is creating, at least at this stage of the development.

Futures

Mike Blumenthal, author of a popular blog on Google Places & Local Search, http://blumenthals.com/blog/ recently asked me if I thought that Apple was in the same place as Google in 2007 when it was using Tele Atlas data. Mike’s interest was in pondering whether Apple, like Google, might be on the road to developing a navigable map database.

This is an interesting question. I think Apple has more problems to solve and a lack of ability to solve them relative to Google in respect to creating a navigable map database. Among my concerns are these:

1) Apple lacks the ability to mine vast amounts of local search data, as Google was able to do when it started its mapping project.
2) Apple does not have Sebastian Thrun working for them, a world famous robotics brain (and professor at Stanford), who developed Street View and Google’s fleet of autonomous vehicles that now gather map data.
3) Apple does not currently have a program like Google Map Maker that has been a valuable source of local data for Google. Using OSM as a substitute may cause Apple major headaches. (Speaking of headaches, I get one every time I try to read the interchanges in the Legal-talk Digest that discusses OSM licensing issues.)
4) Google developed mapping as another way to forward integrate into advertising. Google is in the mapping business only because it advantages their advertising business. I do not see the correlate at Apple, since their ability to penetrate the mobile advertising market appears limited, at least at present.

Summary

Apple has a long road ahead of it in the company’s attempt to create a competitive navigation system aimed at mobile devices. However, one measure of the greatness of companies is how well they respond to significant challenges. Perhaps Apple will hurdle the bar in front of it and set a new standard for maps and navigation. After all, someone should.

Nope, I have not fallen asleep. Nor have I retired. I have been busy at work with Steve Guptill, John Jensen and Dave Cowen (luminaries in the world of geography) on a series of projects for the Geography Division of the U.S. Census. In addition to this joint effort, I have been busy with my TeleMapics clients on projects that I cannot write about in this blog. All this work has made Mike a dull boy.

I did finally get to Egypt and Jordan in February and will soon add sections on each country to my ThereArePlaces travel website. Canon should hire me, as I took over 8,000 pictures with their equipment during my three-week sojourn.

However, the reason I am surfacing here briefly it to let you know that I have a chapter coming out in a book on Volunteered Geographic Information, edited by Dan Sui, Sarah Elwood and Mike Goodchild (more luminaries from the world of geography). My chapter is titled, “VGI as a compilation tool for navigation map databases.” You can find information about the book here, but be warned that it has an $180 price tag.

Another factor that caused me to stop writing Exploring Local is that I could not find anything interesting happening in the world of mapping, Local Search and LBS. However, there is now an enormous amount of activity going on behind the screens of the Great Lord OZ and I may just be prompted to comment on some of it.

I hope all of you are well and prospering.

Mike

And Then There Was…..One?

For this blog I had intended to write an in-depth analysis of efforts of Google and Navteq related to the map compilation strategies they use to produce navigation quality map databases. However, I have decided to focus on the major differences in their approaches, namely field observation and the use of crowdsourcing, since these should be the deciding factors in determining which company is able to produce maps with the desired coverage, currency and accuracy. Unfortunately, there are a couple of additional factor that may have more bearing on the outcome of this competition than any of the technical issues. Of course, I have learned something from journalists and novelists over the years and will conclude this blog by integrating these mitigating factors into my thoughts on which company will dominate the world of maps, mapping and, perhaps, spatial data.

Fans of OSM might be disappointed to learn that I do not consider OSM a contender for this crown, although I do think the organization has a bright future, but perhaps one that is not as map-centric as it is today. Fans of TomTom will wonder why I have not included Tele Atlas as participant in the “Map Champion of the World” competition. Well, it is my opinion that TomTom has all of the components to be a great competitor, but lacks the financial ability to implement its map compilation strategy in a comprehensive, robust manner.

Google and Navteq

Those of you who have paged through the PowerPoint in my last blog will have noted that I am convinced that the winners in the world of map compilation will be those who wield a hybrid approach to the subject. The hybrid compilation approach that I envision melds 1) traditional compilation techniques (e.g. field work/field observation, data gathering/data mining, use of imagery, conflation, data editing, data QC/QA) as practiced by staff with a professional training in mapping/GIS, or by staff who have received training in map compilation techniques with 2) crowdsourced gathering of map data. Make no mistake, crowdsourced map data is a required ingredient for success, just as much as is the use of established map compilation techniques.

How do Google and Navteq differ on the two factors of greatest importance?

The field work advantage goes to Navteq.

Field observation can be structured in several ways, but most often the strategies result in either field work that is sometimes directed in a top-down or conceptually driven manner, while at other times it is directed using a bottom-up or data driven strategy. My belief is that the best map compilation programs must mix a spoonful of each approach to create the winning elixir. In other words, map compilers need to have a conceptually driven database update program that reflects their best guess about areas covered by their map base that are: of strategic importance to leading customers, areas of unusually fast growth/economic development, or areas of significant change. In addition, most “players” in the map compilation business have an established program to “refresh” all coverages in their database on a cyclical basis, based on the notion that data change over time, new sources evolve and that all areas need to be reviewed for changes on a known cycle (although these cycles may differ by geography).

Conversely, data compiled in a previous field canvass can be riddled with errors (either in the original map compilation or with data that have changed since the last compilation). Most often these errors are discovered by map users or the customers of the map database provider and this is an example of data driven compilation. If the area (such as the boondoggle on I-195 in Providence, Rhode Island) is important enough to customers and users, a field team will usually be deployed to unravel the ground truth if other methods of collecting and correcting the data cannot be accomplished through the use of surrogate data.

I think it is an underappreciated fact that having customers with a vested interest in the accuracy of a company’s map database is an important part of the success of map compilation efforts. Unsatisfied customers have leverage in the map compilation process as they are extremely unlikely to accept blame from their users on a map error that is not their fault. The can and often do wave their contractual agreement at the map compilation company to help the data providers understand the “need” to update maps in areas the customer feels included particularly egregious errors.

While “most” companies listen to their customers and the users of their data, customers, especially ones who contribute significantly to revenue streams, command attention. The more important the customer, say BMW, the likelier it is that the offending change will be corrected sooner rather than later and if there is an offending area with numerous compilation errors, the more likely it is that a field team deployed or tactical field representatives contacted and deployed to determine the actual condition on the ground.

Smaller customers command less attention and mere users of products like you and me are, often, even further down the “sensitivity” chain. The reason that I make this distinction is the Navteq has a number of customer accounts that are extremely important to them and who can snap the compilation whip when they are unhappy with the current state of the Navteq database. Google, on the other hand, while having has customers, only indirectly provides support to them (e.g. by the location of their business as a POI or as a map of the location in a Google “local search”). Google’s map compilation system is really a data driven system led by users rather than customers. In other words, the impetus for Google to make changes to their maps is often public embarrassment about their map gaffes highlighted by users, rather than by the direct requirements of customers who are deploying map database in an attempt to solve a specific problem such as in-car navigation.

I think this distinction is important because it is likely that many map errors never get communicated to Google by its users. For instance, how many times have you corrected a Google Map? Of the errors that do get communicated to Google, some users attempt to use Google Map Maker to correct those errors, and the corrections are then vetted by Google’s crack editing team based in India, who, of course, have a complete lack of local knowledge on which to evaluate these proposed changes. The Google error reporting process is one that is unlikely to generate a field response. Yes, the Google Street View vehicles do operate on a top-down deployment, but it is unlikely that they are deployed as a data driven response mechanism.

While electronic and image sensing activities are conducted by both Google and Navteq, the Navteq field teams and contacts are prepped with specific objectives and provided with task lists before they enter the field and human observation of spatial characteristics is often a significant part of their activity. If Google cannot sense these data, find them through data mining or imagery classification, it is unlikely that they will ever discover the richness of data that Navteq operators are able to observe in the field. In essence, if Google cannot find the solution using an algorithm, it needs to be found through crowdsourcing or not at all.

We could spend more time discussing why Navteq’s field operations return better data accuracy than those of Google, but that would be kicking a dead horse –something for which I am known, but do not feel like doing today.

The crowdsourcing advantage goes to Google.

Oh stop! Navteq can tell me a million times how much crowdsourced data it now receives and that still will not convince me of the benefits that this is bringing the company.

There are two types of crowdsourced data. Active data is contributed by a user when they find an error or omission on the map that they willing to fix, or at least to contribute information on what they observed on the ground, as opposed to what they saw on the mapped database. Passive crowdsourcing is the use of GPS signals from PNDs, car navigation units, Smart Phones or other devices equipped with GPS or capable of tracking other RF (such as Wi-Fi). While a significant amount of data can be extracted from paths, it is mostly related to geometry, position, data flows (for traffic analysis) and the like. Passive data does not provide attributes such as names, addresses, zip codes, contact numbers, roadside furniture (see, I told you once that you needed to read that GDF manual), and other important information. The vast majority of the crowdsourced data received by Navteq and incorporated into its databases is passive. Navteq has very limited inputs of active crowdsourced data and gets very little benefit from the real-world knowledge held by its users and the users of its customers’ products and services.

Google, on the other hand, receives significant amounts of both active and passive crowdsourced data. Its active crowdsourcing through map corrections and Google Map Maker corrections provides the company an enormous benefit, although it has not yet managed to create a system that provides them all the benefits that active crowdsourcing can supply. However, my purpose here is not to expound on a better system, but merely to point out that the advantage in the use of crowdsourcing clearly benefits Google Maps, while Navteq’s efforts in active crowdsourcing are too limited to provide any significant benefit to Navteq, other than these data may be used as change detection beacons to help target their field activities.

Crowdsourcing operations are relatively inexpensive to create and maintain. The primary factor is whether your map can be distributed to enough users to bring in a beneficial number of map corrections through active crowdsourcing. Google’s distribution channel is massive in terms of size and reach, while Navteq’s distribution channel is modest, being limited to its Map Reporter and similar relatively unknown resources. Yes, users of Navteq data can and do refer their users to Map Reporter or provide other access for contributing error reports, but, in total, these inputs are insignificant.

So Why Are These Things Important?

Field operations are extremely expensive. While the data quality advantage that Navteq now maintains over Google and everyone else is a competitive advantage, it is unclear to me that Navteq has the financial resources to maintain this expensive advantage.

If you remember back to 2008, one of the reasons that Nokia acquired Navteq was that it was contributing mightily to the Navteq revenue steam and was trying to negotiate lower rates, but Navteq would not budge. The negotiation, then, took an unexpected turn and Nokia told Navteq “Your data is too expensive, so we’re going to buy the company.”

Guess what happened next. Yep, those post-acquisition intercompany transfer prices produced the pricing concessions that Navteq would not offer in the license negotiations. Guess what? Yes, Navteq’s revenue stream has suffered because of this process.

Nokia’s latest innovation is that it has decided not to run Navteq like a for-profit, stand-alone business, but to integrate it into some ill-conceived Nokia business unit called “Location and Commerce” (LAC – now they just need to add knowledge and they can call the business LACK) under Michael Halbherr. Larry Kaplan, who as CEO has managed Navteq for the last couple of years and understood the complexities of the business and business model, will depart the company at the end of the year. Michael Halbherr, apparently has limited experience in building map database or in managing map database companies, but heck, he has familiarity of selling products that use the data from his stint as CEO of gate5 AG, another of Nokia’s “successful” acquisitions. Good luck Michael and please try not to kill off the only substantive alternative to Google Maps.

Hmm. I guess that means that Navteq better get used to hearing “Your field operations cost too much and you need to reduce expenses because the Location and Commerce business isn’t producing any revenue other than the revenue you are generating. Of course, your revenue is what is funding our amazing, Finnish-style, sauna-driven management structure and market-mismanagement structure. And, by the way, why aren’t you using more of that low-cost active crowdsourcing as a replacement for your field operations?” (If this question is asked, those of you at Navteq should take a quick peek at the slideshow mentioned in my last blog.)

You may remember that in 2008 I told you that Nokia wanted to become an advertising company. This statement was based on my assumption the only way to make money with maps and phones would be to sell advertisements to people who are searching for local attractions. I concluded then that Nokia did not have the wherewithal to make this transition and I think that opinion is still valid. Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop indicated that “Focusing on location and commerce is a natural next step in Nokia’s Services journey.” I guess somebody must be familiar with the amazing successes of “Nokia’s Services Journey”, but I am having a hard time coming up with any service related success that the company has achieved.

In my last blog, I mentioned rumors about the SS Navteq being set afloat based on some rumors that I had heard from contacts at several conferences held over the last few weeks. We all knew that something unpopular was going on at Navteq, but my guess was before I became aware of the Nokia reorganization of Navteq. As a consequence, a change in ownership might not be in the immediate future. On the other hand, I suspect that within the next two years, Nokia itself will be sold or decide that it is unprepared to successfully compete in the location and commerce business and sell the location and commerce business to someone, say like NavInfo.

The real problem here is that Nokia is slowly beating the competitiveness out of Navteq and it staff. In addition, I suspect that Google will eventually find the right strategy in crowdsourcing and data mining and begin to create data that can actually be used for navigation, as opposed to routing a table of points, as they do today. When this happens, Google will be able to compete with Navteq across a wide variety of markets. Navteq, of course, could maintain, or even extend their current lead over Google, but it appears that malaise has gripped the organization and it may be that the company’s workforce no longer believes that it can maintain its market leading position. From a practical point of view, I believe that sentiment to be untrue, but I can understand why the Navteq workforce has doubts about the future.

Let’ see how things have worked out in the world of navigation map databases. TomTom acquired and, then, killed Tele Atlas through mismanagement brought on by financial difficulties. Nokia acquired and is killing Navteq caused by general incompetence and financial difficulties.

Who will be left in the world of mapping? Google, that’s who. So Microsoft, if you want to have mapping and routing in the future, either buy Nokia or adapt OSM and do what you can with it. Of course, it might just be cheaper to buy MapQuest, since they already seem to know what to do with OSM.

Happy trails – and Navteq, I’m hoping you will not abandon your market leading position without a fight, although that might involve fighting Google and Nokia.

Now, it’s time for me to fight the final boss in Red Faction Armageddon. Hope I survive.

Next time, unless someone beats me on the head, I plan to explore some new topics. Stay tuned.

You would think that I have just got up from a long winter’s nap, but I have spent most waking moments for the last month working on a project that was delivered yesterday.

The only spare time I had last month was spent on a presentation that I made at the New York State Geospatial Summit 2011 held in Skaneateles, New York on June 16. I was energized by the crowd. They were wonderful sources of information, as I discovered during breaks and meals. I have posted my presentation from the conference on SlideShare and have embedded it below for viewing. If you click the link at the top of the presentation and view the show at Slideshare you will be able to see my brief presentation notes.

Those of you who have suffered through my presentations know that they are prepared, packed with information of interest to me and delivered in a casual but rapid-fire style. In other words, the slides may not provide the same depth on the numerous ideas I presented during my color commentary of the images. My apologies, but I think you might find the presentation interesting anyway.

This weekend I will be drafting my next blog. It will be the follow-up to the last blog on Google Map Maker and how Google and Navteq will battle it out for supremacy. Well, maybe. I understand the SS Navteq may soon be set afloat and have new owners. Could it be true? Stand by and I will let you hear the story early next week (but after the holiday).

Please read yesterday’s blog before reading this one. It will make a lot more sense if you do.
Based on my experience with the Map Maker described in yesterday’s blog, the edit system is deeply flawed, at least in its present incarnation. Just so you know that all of those edits really happened – see that MDob in the right corner?

Unfortunately my experience with the authority system in Google Map Maker was, perhaps, even more troubling than my exposure to the edit system. The “background” for this statement is described below. I point out here that I attempted only three edits and received reviews only on these three edits. As you will read later, those three reviews and an analysis of other edits by these reviewers opened the door to a broader view of the Map Maker and its “trusted reviewers.”

The first edit I attempted concerning the lane in the parking lot that was erroneously displayed on the Google Map as connecting to an adjacent street is a prime example of the structural weakness of the edit/authority system used in Map Maker.

While preparing to edit the map, I was quite certain that my recollection that the lane in question did not intersect the adjacent street was correct. I looked closely at Google’s satellite imagery and decided it was not clear enough to allow me to confirm my recollection.

Another alternative to resolve this problem was to use the Google Street View imagery. While it provided clear evidence that the aisle in the lot did not connect to the adjacent street, I could not find details on the date of the imagery and could not resolve the issue due to the absence of metadata on the Street View imagery available in either Map Maker or Google Maps.

I concluded that the only way to determine whether the streets connected or not, at least in this case, was field examination. So I hopped in my car, drove to the location, and did a field inspection. The field inspection closed the question. I took a set of photos as positive proof that my assertion that the lane and the road did not connect was true.

Yes, current satellite imagery or current Street View imagery might have been used to resolve the issue. However, since the Map Maker edit reviewers presumably do not have access to the metadata on the date these images were captured, they cannot definitively determine connectivity or the lack of it in road involved in the edit I contributed. We can, also, presume that, unlike Jason Bourne, Google’s trusted reviewers do not have the ability to retask satellites or redeploy Street View vehicles to resolve the situation.

I suppose the “trusted reviewers” could look at the maps on other online services for this particular location. In respect to the edit in question, the Navteq and Bing websites agree with Google. On the other hand, OSM, Yahoo (Navteq data), and TomTom don’t show the parking area at all. Let see, that’s three in support and three against. What to do?

I suppose Google’s Map Maker reviewers might be tempted to refer to other sources, like I did for purposes of comparison, but in its Moderation Guidelines for Users of Map Maker Google lays out its position quite clearly:

“While moderating, do not post any material that you know, or should reasonably know to violate any law, contractual obligation, confidential information, proprietary information including copyright or the privacy or publicity rights. Google Map Maker expects you to respect and abide by copyright laws and does not condone any violation of copyright law. Users, moderating User Submissions, are expected to be familiar with the applicable copyright laws in their jurisdiction and in case of a doubt the Google Map Maker team encourages you to consult an expert in the field of copyright law in your jurisdiction for guidance.”

Good for you Google. How do you police that action? Do you really expect your volunteer users to consult an expert in the field of copyright law for their jurisdiction and all of the jurisdictions in which they review edits? Hmmm.

Well, for comparison purposes only, I examined the area using imagery available on Navteq’s website, but it did not provide enough detail to provide a clear answer to the question. Bing’s imagery was superior and showed several trees blocking the access of the lane to the street, but there was a lack of metadata about the age of this imagery opening the possibility that the intersection could be a more recent construction than that shown in the imagery. Just so you know, I do not consider a copyright date to be a surrogate for the currentness of the imagery or the map data, since the date of the copyright may have no relationship to the age of the information in the work covered by the copyright.

Given this uncertainty with the currentness of sources and the inadequacies of the Google source data, it appears that local knowledge gathered through field observation is the most immediate and authoritative method that can be used to resolve this particularly natty problem of road intersection, as well as the best way to solve a large class of problems similar in nature. I drove to the location in question, because there was no other way available to remedy my uncertainty about the location I was attempting to edit.

So, what’s the Google Moderator team to do when they encounter my assertion that the parking lot lane does not intersect the adjacent street as shown on Google Maps? How could they remedy this situation without observing it? Yes, they could look at surrogate data beyond that which I used, but do you really think they are going to spend that much time ferreting out other sources? I doubt it. If you were a moderator, would you? And how long would it take you to find useful sources that did not violate the restrictions on intellectual property that Google assert for its reviewers?

Even if the Map Maker trusted reviewers did collect other data for purposes of evaluation, how would they know with any degree of certainty that the source was current and reflected the status of an issue on the ground? The answer is that they would not have a clue what the correct call was in the case of my edit, and in thousands of cases like it. “Trusted Reviewer” Nigar was smart enough to reference Street View, but unless he had access to metadata describing the date the data was collected, Nigar could not have known that his decision was based on the reality of the situation on the ground.

The edit in which I marked the actual driveway into the medical office complex does not look like a difficult call, since it clearly connected with the adjacent street in both the satellite and Street View Imagery. Unfortunately, the imagery appears to lack metadata, so who, other than a local observer, really knows whether it reflects an access point that exists, or one that was reconfigured recently, or perhaps one that has a chain across it?

The decision on the underground horse tunnel edit is, also, troubling to me. The feature cannot be seen on the Google supplied imagery or on Street View and never will be unless they take a Street View bike down the horse trails. So how was the decision made to accept my edit?

You know, we could speculate for a long time about how the edits could have been made, but let’s skip that dance and see what Google wants its editors and reviewers to do.

In its Moderation Guidelines for Users of Map Maker Google tells editors and reviewers the following:

“Moderation Guidelines

You agree and undertake that the underlying intention behind moderating User Submissions is to remove any submission that you know through your personal local knowledge either or inappropriate or factually incorrect and to approve such User Submissions that to your personal knowledge are accurate.

Under a section of the Moderation Guidelines titled How To Moderate are these instructions:

i. Approve- you can approve a User Submission, if from your personal local knowledge you are sure that the User Submission is accurate both in terms of location and its labeling and does not violate the Map Maker Terms of Service in any manner

Guidelines for Users desirous of moderating User Submissions

ii. The following rules shall govern any action taken by you to moderate any User Submission:
You shall moderate only through your personal knowledge of a local place.

Content that should be denied

Content that you know by your personal local knowledge to be factually incorrect, for e.g. a non-existent building or other landmark, a road going over a building or a water body etc.”

Ouch! So all of these attempts at moderating edits are supposed to be heavily weighted towards local knowledge. To me, that makes sense. After all, the benefits to a crowd sourced system are mainly based on the relevant information that local people can provide about the local situations with which they are familiar.
I guess, then, that the questions for the Google Team are 1) “Do the Map Maker Reviewers really have local knowledge?” 2) “How does Google measure that quality?” 3) ”How does Google enforce that requirement?”

To get to those answers, I realized that I needed to know something about trusted reviewers and use the trusted reviewers who evaluated my edits as examples of how the process works. (Please note that the information I found is publicly available and resulted from searching information available from Google and Google Map Maker. Indeed, some of it was provided by the reviewers of my edits. My interest in revealing this information is to point out the weaknesses in Google’s review system and I use this information to make several suggestions for improvement at the end of this blog.)

Starting Point

Lalit Katragadda, one of the inventors of Map Maker, indicated during a interview on Map Maker that “The most difficult part was not the coding, but the structure,” he says. “After all, how do you know which users to trust?”
The article’s author continued noting “As anyone who has asked for directions on the street knows, not everyone can make maps.
So the Google India team invented a software solution that treats each new edit like a separate page. Over time, the machine learns which users are trustworthy. When a user has reliably labeled enough points, he graduates from the system and can moderate other users’ map making too.”

Reliably labeled? Who evaluates this measure? How do they know the edit is correct or incorrect? Gee, that’s a great approach, but what does it have to do with local knowledge?
It would seem, the “trusted reviewers” are those who have successfully edited maps using Map Maker and reviewed edits by other contributors to Map Maker. Apparently, by contributing edits that are approved and by reviewing edits by others you gain “reputation in the system.” I presume that if your edits are always rejected that you get blackballed. If your review of edits by others is reversed on further review, I suppose you get debited and the “cred” that you have in the system is decreased by the ranking system.

While this “cred” system is interesting, it has little to do with measuring the local knowledge of the Google Map Maker Reviewers. In addition, the rating system is not a reasonable method to establish “authority”, although it is way to establish popularity or it could be regarded as a measure of how few actual map users critically view Google maps. Perhaps it could be interpreted as a measure of those reviewers who evaluate solely on the basis of satellite and Street View imagery?

In essence, the major problem with the “trusted reviewer” concept is that the information available the “trusted reviewer” to evaluate a contributed edit is at best comparable to that available to the contributors of edits and usually less valuable since it is not influenced by local knowledge. Based on my limited examination of Google Map Maker, I have concluded that the trusted reviewers in the Google Map Maker System may have limited or no geographical knowledge of the locations that they edit, or for which they review contributed edits.

The “trusted reviewers” who edited my works were identified only by these names: Shalini, Abhilash, Hemant and Nigar. Edits from two of the reviewers (Shalini and Abhilash) provided links to their history of accomplishments using the Map Maker system. I was able to find details on trusted reviewer Nigar, but nothing for Hemant. What I was able to find, however, provided several useful insights.

For example, “trusted reviewer” Shalini, has been editing and reviewing edits in Map Maker for 214 days. During that time, he produced 10,572 edits and 8599 reviews, including edits of 3,245 features. In essence, Shalini has produced an average of 50 edits and 40 reviews of edits each day since he joined. You can review the edits by “trusted reviewer” Shalini here. You might notice that the Shalini reviews and edits include detailed street level and feature corrections in Vanatu, Nigeria, Brazil, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Iceland, Montenegro, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Macedonia, Romania, Iran, Viet Nam, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Dubai, the United States and many other countries.

Do you think “trusted reviewer” Shalini uses compilation sources outside of those provided to him and all other users by Google? Of course not! In addition, I think we can safely assume that “trusted reviewer” Shalini is not applying local knowledge to the majority of the edits he makes himself or the submitted edits that he reviews. In essence, the skills Shalini appears to have are familiarity with how Map Maker works and the ability to evaluate the suggested edits based on a belief about whether they are supported by the imagery provided by Google (Street View and/or satellite imagery). If this is the case, then, where is the “personal local knowledge that Google requires of its reviewers? More importantly, where is the “authority” in the Google Map Maker System?

During this research, (fact checking earlier today) I went back to the link to Shalini on the page where he corrected my edit. I was shocked to see that instead of the information provided above (which you can still find by clicking that link as of tonight), it linked to a new page that indicated that Shalini’s stats were now 47 days with 257 edits and 420 reviews. All of the reviews were now exclusively for the United States. How curious. How did this change? Same link location, different days, different results. Ya gotta love the Internet. It’s so authoritative. Well, let’s move the next reviewer.

According to Google, ‘trusted reviewer” Abhilash (details here), has been a member for 45 days, with 739 edits and 275 reviews of edits. The Abhilash review and edits appear to be scattered across the United States with a minor focus on paths and trails. After reviewing several of the Abhilash edits and reviews of edits, I concluded that the reference material used by this reviewer, also, appears limited to Google Maps, Street View and the satellite imagery the Google provides to all users. Local knowledge was not in evidence, given the number of states and localities within which Abhilash contributed and reviewed edits.

“Trusted reviewer” Nigar was not linked to on my edit page, but I was able to find him and in his list of reviews was one the edits I contributed that he reviewed – so he was the Nigar for whom I was searching. Nigar has, apparently, been contributing for 161 days, including 1569 edits and 10183 reviews of edits contributed by others, for an average of approximately63 reviews per day.

It seemed as if it took me forever to page through the dates of his latest reviews of edits when I trying to establish that he was the Nigar who reviewed one of my edits. I became so interested in his productivity that I decided to analyze his activities on Map Maker for a given day. I selected May 16, 2011 for no other reason than I had the idea when I was looking at some of the reviews that he approved on that date.

Did you know that “trusted reviewer Nigar reviewed edits contributed by others on May 16th for 12 hours and 29 minutes straight? During that span he reviewed 79 edits or one every 9.5 minutes. The edits were spread across a number of localities in 21 of the states of the United States.

Stunning, isn’t it? But, as they say on television commercials, “there’s more.” Yes, “trusted reviewer” Nigar found time to perform 30 edits of his own in eight states while undertaking his Herculean work in reviewing 79 edits contributed by others. In total, Nigar was involved in reviewing or creating 109 corrections (30 edits, 79 reviews) in 21 states, popping one out every 6.8 minutes over a 12.5 hour period of non-stop map editing on May 16.

Wow, I wish my employees (that’s me) worked that hard! Other pages in Nigar’s portfolio are also filled with large numbers of edits that occur during one day. For instance, on May 20, he edited and reviewed approximately 70 locations. Hmm. Who does this Nigar work for that he can spend so much time editing Map Maker? Or maybe he just has a lot of spare time. Whatever the case, it is highly improbable the trusted reviewer Nigar has a working knowledge of street level geography in localities scattered across 21 states that would allow him to review the edits of others based on his “personal local knowledge of that place” and the imagery information provided by Google.

One of the comments submitted on yesterday’s blog indicated that the Google editing system was complex because it needed to accommodate newbies and “power users”. I admit that I had not thought of people freely volunteering to be power users for a profit-based company like Google. I realize that there are a number of power users working on OSM, but I had always assumed that these contributors were either: a) dedicated to the notion of an open, world-wide street level database, or b) hoping to create an open database that they could eventually use to support a business or another opportunity that might make moolah.

I suppose volunteering all your spare time to improve Google Maps is a possible explanation for the work of trusted reviewer Nigar and if so, Google should at least send him the bedding shown below, which can be purchased here (thanks to Duane Marble for pointing these out to me).

Preliminary Conclusions

Having taken a look at the contributions of three of the four “trusted reviewers” who reviewed my edits, I think I can provide some preliminary answers to the questions I asked earlier in this blog.

1) “Do the Map Maker Reviewers really have local knowledge?” Although my experience the review system is limited, I suspect that many of the reviewers of Map Maker edits in the United States do not have the requisite familiarity with local places to review edits “…only through your personal knowledge of a local place,” as required by Google. This lack could change over time as more locals become involved in the process, which was opened to them in the U.S. approximately one-month ago. However, Google Map Maker is off to a poor start, at least if my experience is any measure of the process.

2) “How does Google measure that quality (local knowledge)?” I saw no evidence that Google directly measures or tries to measure the local knowledge of its reviewers. It may regard its rating system based on how many reviews of edits a person makes that are accepted or overturned as a surrogate measure of local knowledge, but if so, this is confounding the issues involved in the review process. Further, if few reviewers really have the local knowledge to review edits on the basis of familiarity with local geography, then how authoritative can this system be?

3) ”How does Google enforce the local knowledge requirement?” Sorry to say this, but on the basis on my limited analysis, they don’t. I have a suspicion that they are casting a “blind-eye” on issue in an attempt to build critical mass, but I have no substantive evidence to support that thought, at least not yet.

Summing Up

Based on the admittedly modest amount of research I conducted, I have concluded that the “trusted reviewers” Shalini, Abhilash, and Nigar operate within the research boundaries of the information normally provided in Google Maps and mirrored in Map Maker. It does not look like they could possibly bring local knowledge to the majority of their edits or their reviews of edits. Conversely, Google’s own guidelines require that “your personal local knowledge” be used in making and reviewing edits. If this is true, how can these reviewers who evaluate contributed edits submitted from a wide variety of geographic locations and other reviewers who presumably operate in the same manner qualify as “trusted reviewers”? Just to be sure you understand me, I am not suggesting that these reviewers are being dishonest, just that they likely do not have the required local knowledge to critically evaluate the edits they review.

If it took only a little digging on my part to unearth this problem, can Google be unaware of it? Hmmm. Wouldn’t it be something if some of these “trusted reviewers” were Google employees, or compensated by Google, or maybe not even be located in the United States or never have been in the United States? You know, just to get the old crowdsourcing ball going in the U.S. and moving it along to generate that critical buzz that will provide the growth required to make crowdsourcing input large enough to get the edit ball rolling? Now I get to use a phrase I hate, but can’t resist using here – it is “I’m just sayin…”

However, we need to remember that crowdsourced systems are considered self-healing over time. Edits are pushed out so that other people can see them and correct them, if necessary. The crucial issue is whether there are enough edits to provoke reactions/ corrections in the population that uses the map base. More use and correction is thought to improve the quality of the data. Whether this self-healing actually occurs in a crowdsourced system remains unclear at this time and should be a fertile area for those interested in researching crowdsourcing and map compilation.

The use of crowdsourced data to solve the types of editing problems common in map compilation is one that might not work out well in the U.S., at least not based on Google’s current approach. It is my sense that Google does not want to create a field organization similar to employed by Navteq, nor does it want to manage an operation that is not driven by algorithms. In other words, using a volunteer, self-organizing workforce is a big gamble for Google and it is one that has a reasonable probability of failing if the volunteers are left to their own devices.

Recommendations for Improving Map Maker

So, what can Google do? I think you know better than I. However, here are some suggestions (including several contributed by my colleague Steve Guptill).

1. Add improved structure/taxonomy to the features and objects that Google is willing to crowdsource.

2. Provide alternative paths/solutions/tools when current methods do not allow the user to transfer the type of edit information they had hoped to contribute.

3. Smarten up the edit system. There are too many complex objects that cannot be edited or corrected and it is these data that are major flaws in the Google Map Base.

4. Make metadata available to the satellite and Street View Imagery, but only if you really want it to be the crucial factor in edit decisions.

5. Track user IP and use this as part of the process to evaluate whether an edit contributor or a reviewer of edits might have relevant local knowledge.

6. Map Maker is buggy. Fix it.

7. Improve the boundary data files describing the location of edits. Users need to have confidence that you know what you are doing and Map Maker does not yet provide that confidence.

8. The decision process in reviews needs to be more transparent and helpful. A colleague had an edit rejected when he attempted to inform Google through Map Maker that a local chain of banks had changed their name. Google’s reviewer said “Nope.” My contact provided links to sites indicating the name had changed. No reason for the rejection was provided or any alternative solution. Good luck with that kind of thank you

9. For alternative approaches, talk to people who have experience with map compilation relevant to the type of map database you need to support your other strategic initiatives.

10. Spend more time focused on human factors and interface design relevant to map compilation systems.

There are a host of other things that occurred to me, but this blog is already too long (especially when added to yesterday’s opus), so I stopped the list.

Insights

I offer two final insights.

1. Google Map Maker was developed to assist in the creation of maps in countries where maps were either lacking or so expensive and copyright protected, that they were unavailable to the ordinary user. Whether the specific crowdsourced system of map compilation created by Google in the form of Map Maker, which is based on the scarcity of public maps, will provide an advantage in the United States, a country with a rich heritage of publicly available free maps, low cost maps and free and low cost map data, remains unclear to me.

In countries that lack a viable, public map infrastructure, it is likely that crowdsourcing is a viable method of creating detailed, street level databases. In these cases, the majority of the important contributed knowledge (street names, alignments, route numbers, addresses, points of interests, directionality, etc.) would be provided by local users, since there is no national source that can freely be used as a reference.

But will this model work in countries where national and local maps from authoritative sources are available online from a variety of sources? In these situations, will people be incentivized to contribute local knowledge that could improve the map or choose to serve as remote librarians, providing recommendations based on what they can observe online at other map sites without reference to or observation of local circumstances? If so, this becomes a game potentially unattached to local knowledge and one that will not significantly benefit the quality and accuracy of Google Maps.

2. I was amused to find that those editing data in the Map Maker system can do so because they are “editing spam data”. Ain’t life grand in the world of crowdsourcing? How do you recognize spam data? I mean, I’d know it if I ate it, but I am not sure I could recognize it if I saw it. What’s the difference between spam data and a mistake? I suppose its intent, but what tool do you use to measure that?

I had intended to compare Map Maker and Google’s efforts at map compilation with those of Navteq as part of this series and will do so next time I put electrons to plasma. But before that, I am going to do something else. I got so interested in the last two blogs that I spent too much time on them and not enough on my consulting practice or on my other interests – like maybe playing that new 12 string guitar my wife Bonnie gifted me with for my birthday last week.

On June 16, 2001 I will be speaking at the 2011 New York GeoSpatial Summit. It looks to be a very interesting day and I hope to see some of you there.