I started this topic on “Better Maps Through Local Thinking” last time and will finish it next time. Bear with me today, as exploring this topic requires peeling the onion so that we have a common ground for what follows.

Recently, I was driving to San Diego for the ESRI UC, I was listening to the news and a story caught my attention. It seems that a reporter who had bought one of the new Android-based 4G phones from Sprint was enraged that he was being charged an extra $10 per month for 4-G service, even though 4-G service wasn’t available in the Los Angeles area, and might not be until the end of the year. The led me to think that almost everyone who buys PNDs or pay a monthly fee for mobile navigation services often have the same problem.

For example, most PNDs and online navigation services charge you for national map coverage, even if you never use your device anywhere outside of your hometown. I suspect the majority of PNDs are rarely used outside of their home areas or perhaps in an adjacent area encompassing a county or two surrounding their home county. With mobile phones, the use area is larger. Indeed, business users likely use mobile navigation services in a variety of locations, but mostly in locations that are spatially separated from their home base. I doubt that the average user (either PND users or users of mobile phone navigation services) creates routes in any more than two percent of the total area of the United States during the lifespan of the device or their subscription to the service.

The conclusion here is that each user helps reimburse the companies providing their navigation services or devices for offering comprehensive map coverage, even though we rarely use this option. However, the market has convinced us that we are not paying for the original map data. Instead, we are paying for the service and since the service is offered everywhere, we can use it everywhere we happen to be. (Or as quoted by the immortal Buckaroo Banzai “Wherever you go, well, there you are.”) We might conclude that the cost of the product or service reflects its ubiquitousness and our potential, but perhaps unlikely, use-pattern for the service.

In the world of paper maps, the model was slightly different. Yep, there was only one product type, the paper map and usually there were only two piles of maps in stores. One pile included national highway maps, state maps and national road atlases, while the other was comprised of city maps and city map books for various locations around the globe.

If you were going to travel around the US, you bought a US road Atlas from a national provider of maps such as Rand McNally or the AAA. If you were going to Los Angeles, you bought a LA street map or a LA and vicinity map from a national provider such as Gousha or American Map. If you were a resident of Los Angeles, however, you bought a Thomas Guide for Los Angeles County or a combo – Thomas Guide for LA/Orange counties that featured large-scale, up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of the local area. In Washington DC, you bought a map book from ADC. In Austin, Texas, it was Mighty Map, Mapsco in Dallas-Fort Worth and Key Maps in Houston. In Boston, it was Arrow Maps. Do I need to mention that, in the past, the most successful map products in local markets were compiled locally?

Somewhere along the way, somebody convinced us to buy map coverages of places we would never visit. How cool is that? On the other hand, it is clear that the new map databases had attributes that allowed routing and geographical analysis, problems that could not be addressed, in any meaningful way, with paper maps. On the other hand, local companies could solve this problem without much difficulty today.

Interesting stuff, but it is the issue of data quality that should be our focus. Is it possible that local users of map data may not be well served by national or international suppliers of map data who try to optimize coverage, currentness and accuracy across significant extents of the globe? Is it possible that local users are not well served by data based on “global” perspectives that do not embrace and reflect the true nature of place and localities?

In order to get at this issue, let’s explore “how a market in which local maps were produced by local sources changed to an environment in which most map data for use in local markets is produced by national or international sources?”

In the mid-1980’s, the precursor companies to today’s NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas began building commercial, street-level databases aimed at the, then, nascent market for navigation. NAVTEQ’s DCAs are an early example of their approach to segmenting the national market into chunkable areas that reflected markets that might be of interest to automobile manufacturers. However, from Detroit’s perspective it was clear that the market was not going to take off until there was a national product that would allow the car manufacturers to install and sell a navigation system that could be used everywhere. In other words, as some learned the hard way, it was going to be a mistake to produce an in-car system selling for over $3,000, running on a tape cassette, and then say that it only worked in Detroit now and maybe Chicago next year. National data was a must.

Around the same time people were playing with networks, ARPANET, TCP/IP and slightly later NSFnet. In the 90s, we got to the stage of Prodigy, AOL, Netscape, Internet Explorer and all of a sudden there was a perceived need for products with a national scope. In essence, the marketing powers in the early days of the Internet functioned as national distributors and these national distributors wanted national products that would play to their national audience. Three products that were in demand, but which no one was quite sure how to produce, were mapping, routing (navigation) and business listings integrated with mapping and routing.

I doubt many people today realize that until the rise of the Internet there was not a compelling need for a national business directory or an integrated, national, yellow page type of system. It was not until somebody decided they would like to provide a yellow page type of service online that they realized a comprehensive directory of businesses across the United States simply did not exist. Yep, those local yellow page directories worked just fine, because they were used by local audiences. When you needed to know something about a service in another town or in another state, you headed to the Library, whose librarians conveniently collected every YP book they could get their hands on. Sounds antiquated doesn’t it? But the point that I am making is that national products using maps, navigation and yellow pages and business directories had their births in the 90s when a new distribution channel made it possible to advertise a class of businesses that could not afford national coverage on television or radio.

There were two leading choices to solve this supply problem. First, you could try to integrated disparate sources into a seamless national database. Alternatively, you could simply find a provider who builds national databases and license their product. Those who tried the blend approach wound up in a world of headaches. Yes, could always find ways to conflate data, but you could rarely find any satisfaction while trying to understand how every source you found could categorize simple things like road function classes or business names in so many different ways. Needless to say, service suppliers decided that they did not want to try to integrate disparate data. Instead, they sought national providers who could give them a database that was advertised as consistent and ubiquitous and let them get on with the job of serving data and making money.

In essence, as distribution changed and markets for new services emerged, national players trumped local players. However, were national players able to provide better quality data?

I am sure that the providers of navigable map databases and navigation services regard each and every street as important to them and that they work as hard as humanly possible to produce highly accurate and up-to-date maps everywhere. Unfortunately, their model does not scale uniformly because they do not have a large enough field staff to collect accurate data on a timely basis in all of the localities where they need to do so. Instead, these companies suffer from the problem of contention for attention in regards to data collection. They must spread their field research teams over large areas and this often results in their missing miss significant changes in streets, roads, highways, other map data and attributes.

In order to compensate for the lack of adequate field staff and resources, the big three (NAVTEQ, Tele Atlas and Google) spend a lot of time data mining and conflating data originally created for other purposes. While conflation can be a very useful technique, it is often the tool of the data hungry and your hunger always determines what you eat, not what you should eat. Let us take up the rest of the story, including the three-legged stool of map compilation next time, with an eye to why a local approach or the distributed local approach (OSM) might be the best.

I apologize for the delay in posts. A couple of months ago I had to move Exploring Local to a new platform and the support of the service provider has been less than stellar. In fact, I am not sure this blog will publish, since I tried it yesterday and it broke the system. I hope it works this time.
Although I have PhD in Geography, my graduate work was focused on cartography. For many years, I thought I knew something about maps, map databases, GIS, navigation and a host of related topics. Indeed, I was so sure of myself that I taught undergraduate and graduate level courses at the State University of New York at Albany espousing my views on maps and mapping. Having grown even more certain that what I had learned about maps was true, I accepted a position at Rand McNally & Company and was their Chief Cartographer for thirteen years. Eventually, I decided to go solo and opened TeleMapics, my consultancy. I have spent most of the last decade working with clients who are interested in using spatial data for maps, navigation, LBS and a variety of practical applications.

What I learned about map databases during my career is that making them is a data driven process. Without accurate data, your application cannot communicate the information that will resolve the spatial question that had caused the user to refer to your database in the first place. While a large number of top-down processes are applied to make map data useful, such as simplification, symbolization, classification and other aspects of a process that cartographers call map generalization, all of these manipulations, in the end, are constrained by the quality of map data.

From my perspective, creating maps and map databases are examples of a data driven or a bottom-up process. From a logical point of view, if the data do not allow an inference, it would be incorrect to assume one. For instance the road overlay on the Google map of Providence, does not match their imagery. At some point in his travels the driver must enter into an ASM (Arnold Schwarzenegger Maneuver), accelerating the car to 162.615 miles per hour to leap the intervening quarter of mile where the imagery shows no connecting road.

Yep, I know, I am being too harsh. After all, somebody is going to write the mother of all algorithms that will pick, pack, prep, collect, coordinate, conform, mish, mash and manipulate all of these diverse data sources into a cohesive, spatially accurate map database. Sorry people, but it’s not going to happen. There are fundamental data collection problems in the world of spatial data that still are not resolved. For example, where can you find a definitive, authoritative, up-to-date, comprehensive database of all occupied residences in the United States? While the US Bureau of the Census might have one, they can’t give it to you due to Title 13 restrictions on privacy. Hmmm. Is there an alternative? If you suggested the USPS, you need to do some homework. Do you know that even if you could find this database publicly available (and you cannot), you could not find the map data on which you could display all of the streets for all of the addresses contained in the data.

Apparently, it doesn’t seem to bother consumers that the map databases provided by the major map database producers are incomplete, out of date and otherwise erroneous. Maybe if you just keep slathering on the eye-candy everyone will forget that you can’t use these maps to get from here to there and sometimes you can’t even find “here”.

Conversely, map producers know that map database creation and updating is a game of Whack-A-Mole that they can never win. Even utilizing crowdsourcing, data collection vans instrumented with inertial systems, lidar and who knows what else, they have been unable to keep their databases accurate or up-to-date in a uniform and comprehensive manner. In fact, there may not be enough money in the world to create an up-to-date, accurate and comprehensive street map of, say, the United States. Of course, this raise the question of what accuracy and comprehensiveness actually mean in the world of mapping. From a practical perspective the answer is unappealing, but since you asked, the “commercial” answer is, “What’s good enough.”

Really? Yep. Commercial mapmakers don’t actually know how good or how bad their data are at any point in time, because they have no effective way to test their completed database. Yes, they have quality control and quality assurance procedures and yes, they may be ISO certified, but that does not stop them from distributing data that are clearly erroneous.

It is sad that modern routing engines and the databases they use are prime examples of this contention. I have read numerous articles where the reporter has indicated that they previously used Google for their mapping and routing needs, but stopped doing so when Google decided to become the poster child for bad map-making practices. However, I am sure that all of these folks would tell you that they are not satisfied with the mapping and routing service they presently use, but that this is the one that gets them where they need to go more often than the others they have used.

In fact, the notion of the incompetence of the routes that you get from your online or mobile provider has become a glamorous component of the “war stories” most travelers unroll during an unexpected flight delay. Have you heard this one – “So it told me to take a right out of the driveway, took me through 23 other maneuvers (for some reason it’s never an even number) and eventually navigated me to a place within a block of where I started, although the route covered two miles.” Been there, heard that.

Well, then fixing these errors must be an important task and a priority issue for the companies involved. So, what exotic technologies do these companies use to find and fix the data that are erroneous? The embarrassing truth is that the best indicator of update priorities is customers who tell them what’s wrong with the data and these companies don’t even have to ask. What a great business model, huh?

Conversely, If no one complains about the map data quality, there is little chance that bad data gets fixed. It is sort of like the map database version of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Common sources of error correction for customer input includes email, phone calls, customer sales calls and the more modern correction systems like the online map error reporting websites of NAVTEQ or Tele Atlas and the crowd-sourced error correction applications like TomTom’s MapShare. Yep, no knowledgeable humans on the map database vendor side of the equation – only a simple “Just the facts, Ma’am”, Jack Webb type of interrogation.

But wait, let’s get back to that “What’s good enough” issue. What does that mean? Well, it means that the map data are “good enough” to satisfy the needs of the companies willing to license the data. Yes, the clients will complain about errors that are found by their internal product development teams or convey the errors that are sent to them by their customers, but, by and large, the customers of the leading map database providers are a captive audience. If you need a national database to assist in creating your spatially based services, “who ya gonna call,” other than NAVTEQ, Tele Atlas or someone who packages their data?

How can this be?

In the big leagues, map updating is carried out as a two-tier process. Customer complaints drive topical updating where egregious errors are prioritized, researched and corrected. In addition, mapping companies systematically review their entire database on a more or less set schedule, but some areas of the database may not be “touched” for years (if they are rural, remote and unpopulated) while other major urban areas may receive attention that is more frequent.

The word “review” is the fly in the ointment here. The reality is that map databases are updated by comparing them to sources (including field observation) thought to be more current or more authoritative than what you already have in your database. If found to be more current, reliable or accurate than what is in the database, the new data (depending on the type and authority of the source) are either added to the database or used to focus further research for updating. If the sources are not better than what you have, they are tossed. When you have collected what you believe to be the best data for a specific location, you are not going to look at this area again until someone complains, or you discover what may be a more up-to-data or authoritative source during your systematic update process. It is for this reason that map databases contain numerous errors waiting to be discovered by unsuspecting users.

The most valid source for gathering street map data is reality or some method of memorializing its complete details, at least the ones of relevance to mapping (as Google does with its Street View service). Compiling from existing maps or spatial databases means that you have bought into the method induced compilation errors inherent in the procedures used by whoever produced the data you are examining. Unfortunately, you are usually not going to discover the competency of the data or the data gatherers from metadata. So, what’s a body to do?

Crowdsourcing is one response. Although I am a great proponent of crowd sourcing and believe it to be one of the most promising methods of creating up-to-date maps, I am not sure that it will produce a reliable, accurate, comprehensive seamless street level database, over an extent as large as, say, the United States, or maybe even a small region such as the Delmarva Peninsula.

While the OSM product might be of sufficient quality in a number of cities, it is less likely to be of uniform quality across large physical extents with variable population densities. In addition, I suspect that it might not be of very good quality in areas of low income, high crime and other socioeconomic attributes that would convince many data gatherers to avoid these locations. Yes, OSM does use public data sources when available, but here again, you face the issue of adopting potentially erroneous procedures that plagued the original data compilation process.

My greatest concern about active crowdsourcing (active participation – not probes which I regard as passive participation) is that I am not sure it is sustainable over long periods. I realize that its present supporters might be willing to dedicate their time to this effort, but what happens in five or ten years? Will willing replacement data gatherers be found or will OSM become a collection of floating point data sources? Alternatively, might OSM collapse from neglect? Or, might OSM become a series of local data collection tribes. Hmmm. NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas have been around for approximately twenty-five years (since the mid-1980s); will we be able to say the same thing of OSM in 2030?

I have to admit a bias here. I like the concept of crowdsourcing, but think that in the long run it will prove inferior to the ability of for profit firms to sustain quality driven, map database updating using traditional field, research and crowdsourcing techniques (as Google does today, but inefficiently). On the other hand, I am not sure that international map database producers like NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas can compete in local markets with local companies or for-profit groups that are prepared to compile a map based on local sources.

Let’s talk about how that may happen next time. In order to do so , we will need to discuss why many important markets for map data may be, inherently, local.

I will be at the ESRI UC next week and will let you know if I see anything interesting.

Those of you who are in a serious mood should skip today’s blog. I just can’t seem to get my motor started this week and have been looking for some inspiration. Unfortunately, I found it in the wrong place. I blame Father’s Day!

On Father’s Day, I received two t-shirts. Now, since I spend most of my life dressed in t-shirts and shorts, this was a good choice for a present. However, my grandbabies decided that I needed an “Old Guys Rule” logo on one of the shirts. Even worse, it has a guy with a white beard and my sun hat loafing in a hammock (no, I don’t own or use one). “Old Guy”, when did that happen?

The second T-shirt was from one of my sons, who once worked for MapInfo, but obviously does not read this blog. He gave me a Google Maps T-shirt, with a Google map marker on it followed by the words “I am here”. Well, where else would I be? Of course, I will wear both t-shirts with great pride!

Now for something completely silly, but of vital importance.

I discovered theoatmeal.com earlier this week and have been laughing ever since. While visiting theoatmeal, I discovered a link to a blog at mingle2 and created the following piece after having been spurred on by reading “How to tell if you cat is plotting to kill you.”

Generally, I am not one for conspiracy theories, although I would like to know the real story of the undercooked fifteen million pounds of SpaghettiO’s. My buddy Bob, who knows about everything has told me that the SpaghettiO’s reportedly contained alien life forms who were planning to invade and take over Wal-mart’s operations.

However, on a more serious note, the evidence is mounting that your Online Map Provider is planning to kill you, or at least set you up for an assasination attempt. The vendetta may be the result of your having sent in too many map corrections, supplying false map corrections (as a test, of course), or just criticizing their maps and routes. Guess these three reasons pretty much capture the entire population of the world and that is why this story is so important.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but this is serious stuff. Everyday, the press seems to be full of ample evidence that the companies providing online routes and route guidance are actually not in the mapping or the navigation business. Instead, they are the advance agents of a ruthless alien invasion dedicated to wiping out humanity. Yep, it is likely the same aliens behind the SpaghettiO’s covert invasion force (if hiding your invasion forces in cans of SpaghettiO’s isn’t being covert, I don’t know what qualifies). Oh, so you doubt the integrity of this story? Well, consider this (and ask yourself how many times these things have happened to you already…).

1. The address you entered into your preferred mapping application no longer geocodes, even though you are sure it did the last time you used it.

Analysis: In reality, this is a poorly disguised attempt by your map and route provider to delay the 911 services from rescuing you after your map provider has made the “hit” on you. An alternative to this common ruse is the old ploy of geocoding the location of your house a block north,south, east or west of where it actually is located, or, sometimes at the wrong end of the block. Oh, so you’ve never run into that situation? Really!

2. The streets you are interested in visiting are not on the map, even though they have been on other maps of the area for the last twenty years. Yep, even on those old printed maps.

Analysis: This tactic is the result of resource limitations. Yes, your map provider simply cannot afford to put snipers everywhere.

3. You keep receiving the infamous “You can’t get there from here” message or the “We can’t find your destination.”

Analysis: Oh, your map provider can find the location and, in fact, you will be able to get a route to the location later the same day, but not until they finalize the trap they are setting for you along the route they will provide. Now you know why you navigator insists you turn around to get back on route rather than rerouting you.

4. When you select “historic” as the routing option, your map provider takes you past locations that would be memorable only to a Mafia hit man.

Analysis: If your skin starts to fall off during the drive, seek an alternate route to your destination.

5. The route guidance (routing directions) provided takes you the wrong way down one-way streets. This hasn’t happened to you yet? Really!

Analysis: You are the one who should know the terms of use for these online mapping and routing services. In the case of Google, for example, the license indicates “… (a) Map data, traffic, directions, and related Content are provided for planning purposes only. You may find that weather conditions, construction projects, closures, or other events may cause road conditions or directions to differ from the map results. You should exercise judgment in your use of this Content.” What you don’t know is that the planning purpose mentioned in the Terms of Use is actually “We are planning to kill you!” Don’t know what the term “other events” means? How about assasination. Really!

6. Your map provider renders every tile in the area of interest, except the one you are currently navigating. (Danger, Will Robinson, they are waiting for you just around the corner).

Analysis: When you see the blank tile on your screen, turn around and head for safety. If you are on your phone, turn it off or you will see the blank tile surrounding you everywhere you go on the map. But you already knew that, didn’t you? Really!

7. When you select walking routes, the route provided invariably take you through the most dangerous neighborhoods in each of the cities you visit, even if these streets and neighborhoods are not on the route to your destination. Trick – show the route to the doorman of you hotel. When he howls in laughter, discard the route.

Analysis: sometimes, they even take you on streets that are poorly illuminated, have high traffic and actually have no sidewalks. Oh, wait, that was in poor taste, since it appears to have actually happened.

8. The turn-by-turn directions are provided a block or two too late to execute the required maneuver, so you execute a parking brake-assisted U-turn, forgetting that the result of this maneuver will have you traveling the wrong way on a one-way street.

Analysis: bing, bang, boom, they win again! Really!

9. All of a sudden, streets on maps start to look like the people who are following you (I am not making this up. See the following illustration.)

Analysis: well, you were warned. Moreover, don’t try to look me in the eye and say that you don’t know or work with someone that looks like the map above. Yeah, really!

Okay, Okay, I have had my fun and will come back with something more interesting next time. (My apologies to Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler of Saturday Night Live. Really! The same apologies to the talented artists at theoatmeal and the Mingle2 blog.)

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of reading about social networking and now know that the good karma you accumulate for making positive contributions to your network is called “whuffie” (don’t blame me, I only report the news). If you want to know more about whuffie, you can find the book at Amazon. According to Tara Hunt, the book’s author, “what it comes down to, in this Web 2.0 world, is that there really are only three ways to build a business and make money online: porn, luck and whuffie.” Tara continues by indicating that you can generate whuffie in a variety of ways, but one of the best is by creating amazing customer experiences that involve great products surrounded by satisfying user experiences.

From a practical perspective, this is what makes Apple products so great. The iPhone, for example, is a powerful computer, but those who use the device never are exposed to “computerese” and rarely exposed to errors. They just tap their device and it works. In fact, this ease of use is the reason behind the unexpected success of the iPad. It’s a bigger iPhone-like device that just works. It doesn’t appear to be a computer. It just turns on and you can do stuff without waiting for it to boot up, without having to sign-in, close the annoying notice from Word that normal.something has written a new version of itself or that you can’t access a website because “You may not be connected to the Internet.” Sorry Microsoft, I am connected to the Internet, it’s your operating system that is not connected to Web 2.0.

It dawned on my as I read Tara Hunt’s ‘whuffie” book that the notion of “amazing customer experiences” is exactly what is missing in the world of mapping and navigation. Going back to Tara’s quote above and applying it to map services, we don’t offer porn, our maps had better not be based on luck and providers of map services may not be capable of generating whuffie from their communities.

This morning, for example, I fired up my iPhone and took a look at the Google Mobile application. I selected “Maps” and the app asked to use my current location. I agreed, presuming that the use of GPS based location might avoid any uncertainty about where I was at the moment.

Well, I was sitting in my home after an early morning walk eating breakfast and avoiding real work for a few more minutes. I was amused when the first map location Google showed for me was about two miles east of my actual location. Abruptly, I appeared to move a mile south to the Shops at Mission Viejo and then, according to Google, I jumped to the middle of the I-5 Freeway where my location symbol sat for about thirty seconds before moving to a position that matched my actual location. While the movie “Jumper” was modeled on my ability to teleport to new locations, I was not using that particular super power while viewing my iPhone. No whuffie for Google Mobile.

And no whufflie for NAVTEQ, since the company still has not managed to fix the error in Providence, Rhode island on their website. Instead, they continue to refuse to use their own latest database release (must be a licensing issue, maybe they haven’t paid their bill) preferring to use a 2010 copyright on data that doesn’t come from their 2010 database release. Of course, since NOKIA appears to be in freefall after their financial warning, it may not be possible for NAVTEQ to fix the error in the foreseeable future. Maybe they will be sent to the whuffie penalty box.

While we are on the topic of copyrights, I was amused last month (that’s right, in May) when Rand McNally sent me an email indicating that I now could buy a copy of the Rand McNally 2011 Road Atlas. One the one hand, you think the company might be able to afford the send their ex-Chief Cartographer a free copy, but that’s just another piece of embarrassing self-promotion, so let’s move on (no whuffie for me).

On the other hand, how could you publish a road atlas in May of 2010 and label it 2011? Doesn’t that stretch the limits of credibility? When I worked at Rand, we began printing the Road Atlas for the next year in late July and the production run was so large that the atlas printed 24/7 for over a month on high-speed presses just to create the initial inventory necessary to meet the distribution requirements for the product release in September and October.

I doubt that many people are buying print atlases anymore, so the production run is likely significantly smaller than a decade ago. If that’s the case why move the production date back? I guess the answer is moolah ($) based a marketing strategy that hopes to take advantage of an economic climate where more people will be staying closer to home and reverting to driving vacations, rather than “flying” vacations. But still, don’t you think that the Wal-Mart shoppers are going to take a look at the cover and wonder how this atlas can include road changes for 2011, seven months ahead of the calendar? No whuffie from them either.

Every time I open the news, I find another pundit who has realized that Google Maps is an unreasonably, unreliable product causing them to switch to some alternative map provider after describing the numerous routes that were scrambled on Google. The last interesting one I saw was in Albuquerque where Google thinks the local air force base is the local commercial airport. Even after having been contacted by official authorities and changing to the correct location, it reverted to using the air force base as the airport a few weeks later. Double no whuffie for Google!

The problem with no whuffie for mapping is that the situation is bound to get worse. I realize that Google is innovating towards a solution to its mapping problems and feel it is likely that they will improve in the future. Similarly, NAVTEQ knows how to compile data and once it finds a way into using crowd-sourced data, it should be able to advantage itself and produce product with enhanced accuracy. TeleAtlas has benefitted from its acquisition by TomTom through the advantage of the huge number of people contributing map changes and probe data through MapShare. OSM, also, continues to improve it quality and coverage. However, the reality is that no map database provider is capable today of creating a street-level database that exceeds or even matches the expectations of their customers, at least the rational ones.

Who is the “Apple” of the mapping world? No whuffie for anybody! The problem of concern to me is that the kinds of mapping we are seeing on the Web today are based on simple concepts and, even then, nobody seems to be able to figure out how to do them right.

The difficulty I have is that Google, Microsoft, Apple (yes Apple) and others are about to take the next step in mapping. Yep, instead of navigation, place-finders, and map pin types of applications, these titans of industry are going to move into real mapping, GIS and analytical uses of spatial data. I have just two questions. Where will the knowledge base for all of this development come from? Who is authoritative? No whuffie for us – mapping as a science is doomed, although mapping as entertainment appears to have a strong future.

Well, enough of this grousing. Next time let’s look at the notion that “information is tribal, while map database builders aspire to be global”. Is there a way to take advantage of this tension?

By now, most of you have read about Google Maps providing walking directions that may have contributed to the user of these directions being hit by a car as she attempted to cross State Route 224 in Park City, Utah. I am neither a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but here is my take on the issues.

The best description of the walking directions fiasco can be found in two articles by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land, who spoke to the attorney representing the woman struck by the car.

The facts, claimed by the plaintiff, are that she used her BlackBerry to access Google Maps and requested ‘walking directions” between two locations in Park City Utah. Loren Rosenberg traversed the route at six in the morning, when it was dark, and she could not see across the road to determine if the sidewalk she expected to be directed to was actually present or not. While crossing the road she was struck by a car (whose driver is also being sued). Further, it is claimed that warning text (describing the accuracy of the directions) that is now provided on Google’s Website was not presented on the mobile version of the website when the accident victim requested the walking directions in January of 2009.

Of course, with the exception of Danny Sullivan (and his first blog was quite negative about the woman’s actions), the web has been afire with comments. Most of these comments have been about dumb Americans, dumb American drivers, dumb people using the Internet, people lacking common sense using online maps, people lacking common sense about navigation systems and a variety of epithets that, in general, seem to take joy in demeaning the intellectual capabilities of the accident victim. Curiously, many of the comments appear intended to defend the greater glory of Google Maps (even though if Google had examined its own Street View footage, it might have ruled out the route as a reasonable one).

Further, there have been a number of comments playing this tune “It’s a beta…” Oh please! Walking directions have been a beta since July 2008 on the desktop and November 2008 on Mobile. Two years later and the service is still a “beta”?

Well, when will it graduate? Is it the software or the map data that’s still the “beta”, or both? When might we expect a final product? Alternatively, is it possible that Google is attempting to avoid liability by classifying its navigation service as “beta”? Assuredly, all Americans who use online services and the majority of the citizens of other countries of the world using the same services understand what the term “beta” means, as well as possessing complete familiarity with software life cycles. Not a chance!

Some people are just humans, trying to get through their day and using the Internet to help them do so. To the ever-popular “Joe Six-pack”, the Internet and navigation services are like a refrigerator. He uses a refrigerator because it preserves keeps his beer cold until he can drink it. He may not be sure how the refrigerator works, but he has the reasonable expectation that its common name defines what it does. Sort of like “walking directions” – which, of course, differ from something named, say – “potentially dangerous walking directions.”

Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that my background is maps and mapping and that I have had considerable experience in the map business, covering areas of creation, marketing, distribution and liability, which lead me to my next point. Regardless of how you feel about Google or about mapping and routing services, or the general state of map use, you should stop and think about the legal system under which this case and future cases like it will be prosecuted.

First, if this case is tried in a court of law (a state court, likely, but I doubt Google will let the issue go to trial), you should note that the American jurisprudence system and American juries generally lean in the favor of protecting the consumer and that may be a reasonable and socially beneficial goal. Indeed, a group of jurists decided the coffee a 79-year-old woman ordered at a McDonald’s drive-thru was too hot, after she put the cup between her knees, tried to open it, was scalded and subsequently hospitalized for two weeks, when the coffee spilled. The original trial award for the incident was $2.9 million, but later the case was settled for substantially less. (And how many of us still have scars on our tongue after eating a molten hot McDonald’s Apple Pie Tart, baked by a sun lamp to a moderate 3200 degrees Fahrenheit?)

Perhaps most importantly, the lawyer for the plaintiff will argue that the user of Google’s map services has a reasonable right to assume that Google has endeavored to produce a service that can be used for purposes of pedestrian navigation and that the product is safe to use. What, it’s not safe? What, the data has not been tested? What, the company has made assumptions about the integrity of turn-by-turn direction that have not been vetted? What, the company had data in its possession, collected by its own industrious endeavors (Street View), that would have rectified inaccuracies in the route, but the company did not refer to these data when evaluating the safety of its own recommendations?

On the other hand, think of it this way, if you would prefer, with Spencer Tracy playing the plaintiff’s attorney: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client Loren Rosenberg, had an early morning interview across town in Park City, Utah. Her car had broken down and, desperate for a job, she had no alternative but to walk to the appointment, a considerable distance away. Ms. Rosenberg, a mother of 4 young children, did not know the path to her destination and used Google Maps, an application provided on her BlackBerry, to assist her in this journey.”

“Entering her location and the address of her destination resulted in Google’s navigation service providing her with “walking directions” between her current location, at the time, and her intended destination. Due the distance she was away from the destination, according to Google, she needed to leave early to be navigate the path and be on time for the appointment. It was still dark when she began her journey at six in the morning on that cold and snowy day in January 2009. She followed the turn-by-turn directions in the sequence and manner provided by Google, believing that Google was directing her to the safety of a sidewalk on the opposite side of Deer Valley Drive, along which she could continue her journey.

My client was struck by a car and grievously injured while following an instruction in the directions Google provided that required her to cross the road and walk along its other side. Unfortunately, the intersection was not illuminated by street lamp and the written instructions did not indicate that the Deer Valley Drive, a peaceful sounding name, was actually a state highway, a fact that my client could not ascertain in the dark early in the morning as she approached what appeared, to her, to be a lightly traveled street.”

The story will only get better from here. Trust me.

Now Google, in preparing to defend itself will hire experts to wax eloquently about maps, map use, map generalization, turn-by-turn-directions, projections, navigation, disclaimers and a host of technical issues that to the readers of this blog might seem like common sense. However, 99.99 percent of Americans do not read this blog and 99 percent of Americans do not know what you do about mapping, navigation and map databases. I bet your friends eyes glaze over when you start talking shop. My friends have learned that the least mention of something spatial can lead to a 72-hour colloquium and want nothing to do with it. Juries decide cases on what seems reasonable to them and what is reasonable to them is that things that are provided for a specific use “just ought to work.”

I know, some of you are going to say, “…but navigation is free service from Google and you get what you pay for.” Sorry, but maps and directions are a big part of Google’s local advertising strategy and Google makes a significant profit on this and other types of online advertising. Walking down the street is free, but if I slip on business card that you carelessly dropped and injure myself seriously, guess who is going to court?

Litigation and consumer rights will become a significant part of the landscape of online and mobile mapping, navigation systems and Location Based Services. My fear is that cases such as these could stifle innovation in the industry and may serve to penalize smaller firms much more so than larger firms. Welcome to the big leagues.

So, what to do (disclaimer – I am not a lawyer, see a real one for actionable advice)

If you provide a product, talk to a lawyer about your business, risks and expected and potential use-scenarios for your data, platform, applications, and services. Seek capable legal advice on how to best protect and defend your business and your employees.

If you own a small company with online products, be sure that your “terms of use” are prominently displayed and that they provide the suitable warnings and disclaimers for the use of a product or service of the type you provide. Make sure a competent lawyer crafts these terms.

Create a functional and durable corporate memory (written). In an issue that I was involved in recently, there was a question of when an action was originally taken by an Internet firm. The issue revolved around when particular software functionality was first provided and when it was later altered. As in most start-ups, no one had a clue about the timing of the company’s software release dates, other than the day they launched their website and maybe their first app. All subsequent changes to the code and functionality disappeared when the tapes were wiped as part of their backup recovery of storage media.

As a side note, this is why it is so difficult to create a valid history of the Internet. Most of us were so happy to finish something that we pushed it to “live” and then started revising it with all the new features we could not get to the last time. Almost no one bothered to write down when things happened; we considered the stuff that was live as old and uninteresting. Anyway, we were working on the good stuff.

What might happen in the Google case?

Many of things could happen, but it is often cheaper to settle legal issues than to litigate them. Defending an injury case could, for example, run over a million dollars at a minimum and, for this reason, settlement is often a preferred outcome. In addition, a complex court case will require the time of many of your most talented technical staff, who could be creating new applications and this is another pressure that leads to settlement. Finally, there is the common problem that the only person who really knows how the functionality works either just left your employment or is that “special” member of your staff (don’t feign ignorance)that you don’t want talking to other humans.

If Google choosed to settle, the settlement will be confidential and no one will actually know the result, other than Google and the plaintiff, who will be bound by a mutual confidentiality pact. If Google chooses to litigate and loses, it will likely then offer a better settlement than the court offered and convince the other side to vacate the case and the judgment, so that it will be as if the case never happened. Then we can start this all over again with someone else, but without a precedent.

See how smart reading the blog has made you? Oh, I can “feel” the comments already. It’s going to be uncomfortable – kinda like eating one of those old McDonald’s Apple Pies I mentioned earlier.

I have been spending a lot of time in my office working on various client requests for TeleMapics and other business interests that I service. I have become something of a shut-in recently as I continue trying to get ahead of the workload, but without great success. Yesterday, I broke off for a lunch at Baja Fish Tacos with a business associate.

You know, Orange County can really be beautiful and the weather is often fabulous. Yesterday was one of those perfect days. Yet, as I drove along a beautiful stretch of road, almost everyone I saw was ignoring reality and looking at the screens of their cell phones, yep, even the drivers. People on the street were walking while staring at screens. As I drove into the parking lot, I had to be more cautious than usual, as most pedestrians were going to or from their cars staring into those tiny screens. Even my buddy was sitting in front of the restaurant, staring in to his screen. What are we looking for in there?

Obviously, this focus on the small screen has significance for evolution and the development of humped backs, increases in the population of beady-eyed people, and smaller, longer fingers, as well as the possibility of 360 degrees of movement in our thumb knuckle joints. But I don’t care about that. Inquiring minds are asking, “What are we looking for in there?”

Recently, when I was killing some time between appointments, I peered into the screen of my mobile and saw this article, “Yahoo Looking To Blow AOL’s Patch Out Of The Water”. Good for them. Who knew? Who cares? Have some patience; AOL will blow itself out of the water, just as it has done so many times before. Do you know how you spell AOL? Yep, that’s right “i-r-r-e-l-e-v-a-n-t.”

Next, I saw an article titled “Yahoo buys Koprol”. My initial reaction was “Save us, cut the electric grid now and dismantle the wireless towers.” Do you know how you spell Yahoo? Yep, that’s right “c-o-u-l-d-b-e-i-r-r-e-l-e-v-a-n-t-s-o-o-n.” Is this really the stuff we are looking to find in our phones? Or is our interest in what our recently found 3392 best friends have just posted on Facebook about their day? I’m not sure.

When I next stared into that small screen, I found out that Nokia and Yahoo seem to think we are looking for access to email, maps, messaging and local information. Hmm. Could this Nokia/Yahoo thing be important? And, in retrospect, could the two announcements above be important?

I thought that a Reuters report on the deal between these two titans seemed to have it right in that it downplayed the significance of the worldwide, strategic alliance between the companies. I reasoned that there has to be more to this partnership than meeting the consumer needs for mundane things like maps and email, but Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, quashed my intuition by indicating that the relationship with Nokia is not an advertising-based partnership.

In addition, Bartz stated, “Yahoo lost its focus on maps a couple of years ago” and seemed to be using this as the motivation for switching to OVI Maps. I’ve got some bad news for Carol. Yahoo Maps may be better designed and more useable than the OVI maps that will replace them. The functionality in OVI maps is buggy (although I do like their 3D view), the service is slow and the maps appear even more out of date than the Yahoo maps, as they show a 2009 copyright (both use NAVTEQ data). In addition, the traffic warnings shown on the OVI maps are not as current as the traffic conditions shown for the same areas on the NAVTEQ website (same day, same time). (The combination of Nokia’s MetaCarta and Yahoo’s WhereOnEarth properties may be quite interesting – but not directly related to my interests here, so we will move on.)

Of course, the problems with serving and functionality mentioned above can be fixed, but I am not sure that Nokia or NAVTEQ are the companies to make these fixes, since the maps on the websites of both companies do not load as fast as the maps on Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, MapQuest or even Yahoo for that matter. Next, as I noted previously, the maps on OVI Maps and NAVTEQ’s website are not derived from NAVTEQ’s latest database release. Maybe they should take lessons from MapQuest who appears to be using NAVTEQ’s latest data!

On the other hand, perhaps Nokia and NAVTEQ need some deCarta? Maybe they need to purchase deCarta?

So, I think that we should conclude that “better” mapping is not the issue that sealed the deal. Free maps for Yahoo and free email access of Nokia users, now that might be more persuasive, but no financial information was released about the cross-licensing of maps, navigation, messaging or email functionality.

In order to appreciate this deal, I think you need to look under the covers, so I did a little research. During the press conference, the following image was shown and it contains some compelling information.

(Click here to download a larger PDF version of this image.)

Although there may be some side-benefits from the deal to help Nokia with the unfamiliarity of the OVI brand in North America and with Nokia’s abysmal position in the North American phone market, I think this deal needs to be evaluated by its significance outside of North America and Western Europe.

It is my opinion that “infrastructure” may be an important reason behind the deal. Many countries around the world lack a well-developed wireline infrastructure either for their telephone systems or for their Internet services. In numerous “developing countries”, cellular phones are the device of choice for accessing the Internet and using email. In addition, it is my belief that, in these countries the focus of the use of messaging, email, Internet and maps is more likely to be local (as opposed to regional or national) than in the more “developed” economies. As a consequence, the users may gravitate to the platform that will advantaged them by providing access to quality local information (see, those first two news items mentioned at the start of this blog actually may be key to the success of this deal).

In other words, the Nokia/Yahoo deal is an example of the paradox that as the economies of the world become interlinked and globalized, societies seem to be becoming more “tribal” and tribal equates with local. The advent of Local-Social networking is a prime example of these trends and reflects the obvious interest that all of us have in knowing “what’s around me.”

It appears Yahoo could become a valid alternative to Google. Before this deal, Yahoo lacked the DISTRIBUTION to get its product to the masses. Similarly, while Nokia had distribution in the parts of the world coveted by Yahoo, it did not have an Internet presence that the masses would find relevant to their interests.

Perhaps the Nokia/Yahoo deal will work out to be significant. However, to “make it so” Nokia will have to show more flexibility and less “Finland-vision” than it appears to have been able to muster in the past. This deal is really about the balkanization of information and global publishing. While it is good to have companies like Reuters and AP, they are not where I turn when I want to find news about Laguna Hills or Orange country. I think the rest of the world will vote the same way and now Nokia and Yahoo may have forged a strategy that give them an opportunity to compete with Google around the world by providing local information or relevance to local populations.

Now for the real, but unpublished, news in the deal

As a side note, I was slightly surprised that it was OVI Maps that was mentioned in the deal and not NAVTEQ. Is Navteq on its way to being absorbed by the Borg of the north? Clearly, NAVTEQ is not a consumer-facing brand, so that may be the reason they are in the backseat on this one. However, they may be a significant beneficiary of the deal. What? How could that be?

Well, all of you (that’s all five of you) who use OVI Maps might be interested to know, at least according to my sources, that the 3.1 software license you signed with OVI sends probe data back to … Nokia and the amount of probe data may be on the verge of expanding exponentially with the Yahoo deal. Now OVI will be able to fix their traffic guidance and NAVTEQ will have another tool to use in its competition with Tele Atlas. How about that? Maybe that’s the kind of thing I am trying to find when I stare into that small screen.

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a terrific Memorial Day Weekend.

I had a conversation last week with Mark Friend, whose acquaintance I made quite some time ago when he was working for Vicinity Corporation (acquired by Microsoft). Later Mark and I were both employed at go2 Systems, an early entrant into the mobile LBS market. Mark was an executive in sales and I was the CTO and EVP of engineering for the company. I had lost track of Mark until he called me recently, telling me he was onboard at Maponics.

Maponics, with a staff of approximately 30 (up from 12 two-years ago) and sales divulged at “less than $10 million” is known as a provider of polygon data identifying neighborhoods. The neighborhood data created by Maponics are used by Google (search filtering – not mapping), Trulia, ReMax, Redfin, eNeighborhoods. infoUSA, Citysearch, Yellowbook, DexKnows, NAVTEQ, Twitter and others.

The neighborhood data is comprised of non-overlapping boundaries complimented by neighborhood “use type” (e.g. retirement community, commercial, industrial, subdivision, etc). While the neighborhood boundary business is an interesting one, Mark had called to introduce me to a new product that shows what an inventive, small business can do to open new markets.

Maponics’s new product is a spatial database containing school attendance zone boundaries. These are the areas around public schools that define the households that attend them. In addition to locally sourced public school attendance zone (SAZ) boundaries for covered metro areas, the product dataset includes nationwide coverage of school district boundaries, as well as private and public school locations and profiles. (Private school attendance zones are widespread, not nested within formal school district boundaries and discontinuous due to the elective nature of their attendance. Consequently, Maponics will provide the location of private schools, but not a representation of their attendance zones.

The first product release of the data will include granular school attendance zone-level coverage for over 20 percent of the K-12 U.S. student population and 100 percent at the school district level. Maponics is poised for significant expansion of its attendance zone coverage over the next several months, with at least 20 percent increases in student population coverage per quarter.

Maponics believes that its School Attendance Zone Boundaries dataset will become a “must have” in the real estate market, since the dataset allows parents thinking about relocating to determine which schools serve the areas surrounding houses they are considering for purchase. In addition, these data should be of interest to direct marketers who could use the database to target households by school attendance zone boundaries.

While the U.S. Census Bureau provides a School District Review Program that includes mapping, it is restricted to the “school district” and does not provide the granularity of the school-oriented attendance zone boundary data provided by Maponics. For this reason the company to believe that the SAZ data might be of use to government analysts and policy makers. In addition, Maponics speculates that there may be some play for these data in social networking applications. It is possible that the SAZ may represent a spatial representation of a “neighborhood” that is familiar to kids attending a specific school, while more commonly used definitions of neighborhood may not be on their mental map.

The procedures that Maponics uses to identify the school zones are laborious and involve significant manual work that, at present, may be the only way to capture SAZ information. The company uses “rooftop” geocoding to determine the location of the schools and works with contacts at individual school districts to determine the “attendance” boundaries of the schools included in the districts.

Mark told me that the source data are typified by a substantial change rate. My translation is that the tasks of capturing and maintaining the data are an ongoing and expensive obligation for the company and probably the reason behind the staged release of the product.

The initial release will cover 20% of the U.S. school aged population with additional 20% increments being added each quarter until the database is completed in early 2011. Mark noted that the company believes that the coverage of the databases will plateau between 90 and 95% due to the improbability of capturing all SAZ data everywhere or gaining the cooperation of all school districts. I queried Mark about the potential use of UGC for this effort and he indicated that it was something they were exploring, but had not yet concluded that it would be more effective than their current place-based data collection.

It is my thought that initially, not all school districts may want to cooperate with Maponics and this situation may provoke difficulties in reaching the saturation coverage required to make the product useful. However, if the introductory database is welcomed by the market (especially by policy makers and those in real estate), then school districts may proactively want their schools represented in the Maponics database.

I am sure that many of you reading about Maponics’ efforts in this area, must be scratching your head and thinking, “That’s a tough and expensive way to make money.” I agree. The one truism I have learned in my years of working with geographic data is that few customers understand or appreciate the value of spatial data or the cost to create a spatial database that is comprehensive, current and accurate. Fewer still understand the cost to maintain these data over time. Whether the future is good to Maponics will depend on whether or not the markets find value in leveraging the School Attendance Zone database into their applications.

My forecast is that the SAZ data from Maponics will be viewed as an attractive product by realtors and professionals involved in local marketing. Marrying the SAZ data with demographic information by census tract could help to create a compelling product (as well as one that would be fun to model).

I was somewhat concerned that the company was releasing a partial database as its initial entry into the market, even though it is their stated goal to complete the database within the next year. Perhaps their practical approach will win out. After all, who else is producing this data at this level of granularity?” Alternatively, should that question be, “Who else will be intent on producing this type of data once they see the Maponics press release?”

The SAZ database is being developed in a strategic partnership with GreatSchools http://www.greatschools.org/ : whose Great Schools ID will be included in the product. The companies will be making a further announcement regarding the full extent of the relationship within the next month.

Some portions of the material above were garnered during my discussion with Mark Friend, while other information was taken from the Maponics press release on the topic, which you can find here.

Four blogs in the last four days, phew. I need a rest. So do you. Take the rest of the week off. Tell your boss I suggested it.

I have to eat “humble pie”, maybe “bumble” pie, today. I received an email this weekend indicating that NAVTEQ had actually fixed the I-195/I-95 interchange in Providence, Rhode Island in its first quarter 2010 release. The emailer told me that the database was released in January 2010. As you can see on the image below, the section of I-195 now being demolished is no longer represented in the NAVTEQ database and the correct reconfiguration of the highway is shown.

I feel re-assured that NAVTEQ got it right and did so earlier than its competitors (TeleAtlas and Google), as I had assumed that its field operations would have caught this change early and was stumped that NAVTEQ appeared not to have made the correction. Apparently, the problem was that I did not have access to the contents of NAVTEQ’s latest database release and assumed (incorrectly) that what was being show on their corporate website was the best, most up-to-date data that they had. What a silly assumption! Why would a company want to put their best foot forward in an attempt to build a brand and become a customer facing business? Of course, NAVTEQ is in good company, since OVI Maps (Nokia) and Bing Maps are not yet using NAVTEQ’s most recent database release.

Perhaps more curious is the 2010 copyright date shown on the maps displayed on the NAVTEQ website, even though they are, apparently, using 2009 data. (I suppose we should not confuse the copyright date on the maps with the database release date – even if that is what a casual reader would do).

Maybe NAVTEQ should send that press release it issued on the need to have up-to-date maps to itself, Nokia and Microsoft? By the way, it appears that MapQuest (another NAVTEQ user) has ingested and compiled the NAVTEQ January update, as the geometry shown on its map of Providence appears identical to that shown in the NAVTEQ illustration above.

So, I need to give a “half-apology” to NAVTEQ. They got it right sooner than their competitors (Google and TeleAtlas). I feel bad for having beat on them, as this was based on my misunderstanding of the situation. However, I am not really feeling embarassed, since I still cannot figure out how anyone was supposed to know they resolved the problem, given that NAVTEQ did not (and does not) seem inclined to update their own routing application using their current data Maybe its data integration problems. Who knows?

And Something More

I took a closer look at Google Maps and they have figured out parts of the Providence problem, but not all of it, as you can see below. Maybe those 300 people in Kirkland will help solve this problem?

While using OVI Maps I ran into a relatively unusual situation. When I searched for Rhode Island, the site responded with a message that it could not find Rhode Island

Or Providence, Rhode Island

Or New York, New York.

At that point, I thought that maybe the application was only searching the map being displayed. Since the map on the screen was centered on my area, I entered Long Beach, which was shown on the map, but no luck – no Long Beach.

Online mapping, you just gotta love it.

I had thought I would take the weekend off, but the following blog just forced itself out and you can blame Mike Blumenthal.

I presented an online presentation in the Joint Worldwide Universities Network Virtual Seminars in GI Science and Technology in November of 2008 on Neogeography, which was the focus of the fall 2008 program. My topic, “Data Quality and Neogeography” contained, I thought at the time, lots of interesting material for future research. You can find the presentation here.

One of the comments that I made was that even with the benefits of moolah ($$$) major navigation databases were out-of-date, inaccurate, non-comprehensive, of variable quality and too expensive to maintain. The summary of the presentation was twofold. First, I believed that UGC and neogeographers would become an integral part of the process used to build spatial databases. Next, I concluded that hybrid data collection systems using UGC and controlled data, including formal field gathering and measurement, were where geospatial database building efforts were headed.

Near the end of the paper, I asked “Will the winner of the map building competition be established commercial companies that capitalize on UGC to augment their data or new competitors that commercialize UGC and augment these data to compete with established systems?” Since we invent the future as we move towards it, I decided it was going to be fun to see what happened in the industry over the succeeding two to three years.

Since that time, Google has emerged as the leading new competitor commercializing UGC and augmenting it with more traditional data gathering methods (e.g. field activities (Street View),data mining etc.). On several occasions, I have blogged about Google’s map creation efforts and forecast that they would eventually need to hire an army of map compilers if they were serious about being in the navigation and spatial database building businesses. As you can see below, I should consider opening a fortune telling business, or, as least, posting my “Psychic for Hire” sign. (On the other hand, isn’t that what consultants do anyway? Wait, that includes me! Ugh.)

Late last night (see, there is an advantage to being a night owl), I received a note from Mike of Blumenthal’s blog who was passing on a note from one of his contacts (Chris Silver Smith) with a link to an article in TechFlash titled “Google hiring 300 workers to pinpoint bugs in Google Maps.” This appears to be another of those comedy pitches that are hard to find anywhere other than in the world of mapping.

What, Google needs to hire people to pinpoint the bugs in their maps? I thought that was the reason behind Google’s use of UGC and the map-feedback-loop? However, I have some advice for Google, “Use your maps and you too will be able to find the errors in them.” Oh, wait a minute. You do use your maps to support your local advertising system. And what did you find out? Oh, that bad?

The article from TechFlash starts “Google is hiring an army of 300 temporary workers in Kirkland as part of a yearlong campaign to improve the accuracy of Google Maps. The search giant is working with temp staffing agencies to find “computer geeks” familiar with geographic information systems and mapping software.”

I suppose there must be a couple of million “computer geeks” familiar with GIS and mapping software living in Kirkland, Washington (presumably these are the same people who used to work with the GIS giant Costco in Kirkland). Later in the article, it gets even better when the author of the piece (who seems to have done his homework), indicated that the two search firms helping to fill these position are looking “…to find 300 ‘visual data specialists’ to improve the product.” Jordan Newman, attributed as a “Google spokesman” in the article, apparently said “…much of the work will focus on data management.” The article goes on to indicate that data management includes “…keeping current on new business listings and the latest information on things like bike trails.” Whew, that’s a relief.

So, let’s be sure that we have this straight. Google apparently needs “computer geeks” familiar with GIS and mapping, who are “visual data specialists” and knowledgeable about data management topics such as keeping current on new business listings and the latest information on things like bike trails. You know, in all of my years in maps and mapping, I don’t remember ever meeting a person who had all of those skills, much less finding them in someone applying for a “temporary” job.

Get a realistic strategy, Google! Improving the quality of your maps is not a temporary need. The whole concept of “keeping current” is not an effort you can do in a year and then abandon because you decided a year earlier that this effort could be accomplished in twelve-months.

I realize that the emphasis here is that Google apparently believes it needs to hire a temporary work force to eliminate the map errors they did not catch in the original compilation process used to create the Google Base. However, my belief is that they will find out that research conducted by a professional team of map compilers could be of significant benefit to them. However, Google has a history of not liking solutions that are non-algorithmic. Imagine that, having to hire humans. Time will tell.

The fly in ointment in respect to Google’ approach to navigable map database building is that you cannot build a database of the quality needed for navigation, based on conflating data from public domain sources. In addition, you cannot build a navigation quality database sourced only from User Generated Content. Google, go back and read the slides from the presentation noted above – you need an integrated hybrid approach and a part of that activity is to have talented, professional map compilers who know GEOGRAPHY and how to find “source” on all thing geographic.

To be honest, talented map compilers are hard to find. In fact, you do not find them. Nope, you find people who have the talents and then you train them, because there is no public educational program (university-based or trade school) that trains competent map compilation experts focused on building navigable map databases. The talented map compilers who do exist in the world are classic data geeks, but ones who are interested in geography.

While I do not think it likely that the group being hired by Google will have strong map compilation skills, I do agree that they will be able to help Google build a GIS database with reasonable, but not exceptional quality levels. Building a navigation quality database that provides legal routes and route guidance capabilities, along with accurate address records, well, that’s not something Google is going to get to without different people and different tools.

However, one has to wonder who at Google has the experience that NAVTEQ and Tele Atlas have gained over the last twenty-five years of compiling navigation quality databases? In other words, who at Google is going to train this new, but temporary group of map compilers? Who at Google really understands the map compilation process enough to teach others how to do it at a professional level? Who at Google has experience with field data compilation for building navigation databases? In short, this is not a technology transfer program that can be accomplished in a year. Google needs to build a map compilation branch and the duration of that effort will last as long as Google wants to be in the mapping business.

I suppose many might think it is a “cheap shot” to ask the questions posed above. However, if Google had the answers to these questions before they built the Google Base, they would not be hiring 300 “crack” map compilers after releasing it for public use. After all, as noted in one of the comments to the TechFlash article, Google is the company who brought you Randolph, Vermont the popular city, apparently located at the bottom of Lake Champlain.

Now, once again bringing out my ESP capabilities, I predict that Google has yet to feel the real pain of being a quality cartographic provider (maybe, because the company does not yet merit that title). Just the other day, I saw a note indicating that the government of Vietnam had complained about Google’s depiction of the Vietnam/China border. I wonder who is going to research that question and others like it for Google?

In a similar vein, I wonder how UGC, the use of imagery and Street View are going to help Google answer questions about geographic features that are not visible, like boundaries. Guess that means greater reliance on data mining. Guess that, also, means greater reliance on authoritative sources. Guess that means more reliance on metadata? Google? Metadata? Do the two go together? Hmmmm.

I usually write this blog on Thursday, but yesterday was my birthday and I took the day off. In fact, I am taking today off as well, so I am not going to write about anything complex and that usually means I am going to pick on someone. I did not go to bed until 0330 this morning, so I am not sure that I have any complex ideas in me anyway (no comments please). However, I checked my email before retiring this morning and found a link to a press release from one of my favorite companies – NAVTEQ (as in the Providence, Rhode Island NAVTEQs). Well, we will get back to NAVTEQ in a minute.

Earlier this week, I noticed another press release indicating that Nokia had reorganized its top management (again). However, inside of the release was a little nugget and here it is:

“Nokia has also appointed Rich Green to the position of Chief Technology Officer, assuming responsibility for driving common technology architecture across Nokia. Green brings a wealth of experience from his time in Silicon Valley, including a number of years at Sun Microsystems.”

This may not be of significance to you, but Rich did his M.A. in geography with me and was also my assistant when I was teaching at the State University of New York at Albany. Before accepting the position at Nokia, Rich was VP of JAVA at Sun and their EVP for software (he left prior to the announcement of the Oracle deal).

The notice about Nokia started me thinking about all of the great students that I met during my residence at SUNYA. Dr. Terry Slocum, who preceded Rich as my assistant and Master’s student, went on to the University of Kansas and made a career of it, recently stepping down as department chair. Dr. Matt McGranaghan, my assistant and M.A., student following Rich Green, did his PhD at Buffalo and then headed to the University of Hawaii, where, after many years of service, he recently stepped down as chairman. These three were just a few of the terrific students that I was “gifted” with at Albany. Many others are now working in industry or government service and focused on important issues in mapping, GIS and technology. While I have had some measure of success as a professional, the feeling of, perhaps, having helped my students on their way to accomplishing meaningful goals (for themselves and society) is one of the most important of the “rewards that I have garnered in my career. So, to my former “students” – I am proud of all of you and thanks for taking the challenge.

Now back to NAVTEQ

You know, I hate to do this, but finding comedy material in mapping, like that provided recently by NAVTEQ, is rare. I suspect that Jay Leno is starting to think about doing one-liners on the mapping community, as NAVTEQ’s most recent press release is like having George Bush as president again.)

Below is a selection of paragraphs from the NAVTEQ press release, although you can find the whole thing here if you want to see it without my snide comments (which are shown with italics) .

“NAVTEQ Reminds Consumers of the Importance of GPS Map Updates during the Summer Driving Season
Map Updates Now Available for In-Vehicle Systems and Garmin GPS Devices at Amazon.com, Best Buy, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, Garmin.com and NAVTEQ.com” (Is this the longest press release title ever?)

“Chicago, IL – May 12, 2010 – NAVTEQ, the leading global provider of maps, traffic and location data enabling navigation, location-based services and mobile advertising around the world, reminds drivers to update the maps in their GPS devices in order to save time, money and gas during this summer’s driving season.” (Unless you will be driving in Providence and other select locations.)

“While money spent on fuel is likely to increase, NAVTEQ offers a simple way to save gas, money and time by purchasing a map update for GPS navigaton systems. Map updates are important so that an in-dash navigation system or portable navigation device has the most up-to-date information it needs in order to work most efficiently. A 2009 NAVTEQ Study* has shown that vehicles with regularly used GPS navigation systems use 12% less fuel than those that do not which can lead to out-of-pocket savings of over $250.00.” (Of course, it appears that using NAVTEQ data in Providence could lead to heaps of frustration. (By the way, I copied and pasted the text from the original release and the spelling errors were in the published text. Duane – notice “navigaton” in the first sentence of this paragraph – apparently I am not the only one who needs a copy editor.))

“Map updates help the “shortest“ and “fastest“ route functions work most efficently, minimizing extra miles driven and time on the road. Updates also save drivers time by providing the closest gas stations, restaurants, hotels and other important points of interest.” (Except, of course, in Providence and other selected areas where NAVTEQ’s lack of map updating” may maximize miles driven and time on the road. Of course, you might be able to get to your destination if you opted to eliminate travel on freeways and interstates. Indeed, truck drivers tell me that the cross-country by surface street route is growing in popularity with NT customers.)

“With today’s economic realities and busy lifestyles, drivers can’t afford to waste gas driving around with outdated maps,” said Lonnie Arima, VP North America Channel Sales Development, NAVTEQ. “A map update provides the most accurate, up-to-date road and points of interest information so drivers can efficiently reach their destinations.” (Did he really say “outdated maps”? Did he infer the NAVTEQ maps are up-to-date? I love marketing-speak.)

Now, you know what’s coming next, don’t you?

The image above was taken around 0930 AM PDT this morning, May 14, 2010. I have to thank NAVTEQ for extending the fun that started with my birthday and continued today, thanks to their press release. You know, the image above looks a lot like the one I captured and posted here on February 25, 2010, except that this one shows traffic flowing across the new I-195 (which is labeled India Street on the NAVTEQ map and they must be wondering why all that traffic is flowing across such a small arterial).

Unfortunately, when I requested a route from an address in East Providence, Rhode Island to Cranston, Rhode Island, the suggested path took me across the loop that is being razed and no longer connects I-195 with I-95 (see my last blog for a photo). I sure hope that all those people who saw the NAVTEQ release and bought the update are pleased with the result (which they might be, if they do not drive in Rhode Island or other select areas).

Next week (probably Tuesday), I will delay my intended blog topic, because I have some information to share from Maponics that I think you might find interesting. In addition, and unrelated to Maponics, have you noticed all this stuff about parcels going on out there? Interesting.