Google's Michael Jones on Crowdsourcing
By Michael Jones
, Google, Inc.
October 12, 2009
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I've been saying in keynote talks for years that users are the local experts and that a rich and accurate map of the world must therefore reflect user's knowledge. We have launched a long series of enabling tools and systems toward this end:
* Places of personal interest in the Google Earth Community at http://bbs.keyhole.com* Easy personal map annotation, sharing, and collaborative editing in Google Maps' MyMaps
* Simplified building/campus/city model creation and sharing via SketchUp and the 3DWarehouse at http://sketchup.google.com/ and http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/
* Geo-located visual place descriptions via http://www.panoramio.com
* Geo-tagging of photos in PicasaWeb at http://picasa.google.com
* Geo-tagging of videos in YouTube at http://www.youtube.com
* Business-owner creation and editing of business listings at http://www.google.com/local/add
* Public transit agency sharing of schedule data at http://maps.google.com/help/maps/transit/partners/
* Easy construction of base-map data by users and governments at http://www.google.com/mapmaker
* City/County/State/Department/Country map content data sharing partners at http://maps.google.com/help/maps/mapcontent/
* Other efforts under development and test but not yet launched publicly.
Step back and look at this broadly. Google Web Search products index the world's websites. Everybody understands that role. Google's geo team would ideally simply index the world's geospatial information in the same way. Unfortunately, that data has been inaccessible, disorganized, offline, restrictively licensed, or otherwise unavailable. (NSDI efforts reflect this situation.) We licensed a broad "starter set" of data and have been busy building tools to augment that. The latest step with the recent launch of new map tiles reflects our judgment that a tipping point of data quality and cross-checking has been reached in the USA.
I know that users are now better served with an easily correctable, rapidly updatable, widely usable base-map built from the synthesis of hundreds of data feeds, hundreds of thousands of individual contributors, and potentially, hundreds of millions of local-expert users. Think of it this way. If tomorrow every Web user in the USA took one minute to look at their neighborhood or workplace on Google Maps and make any necessary corrections, every Internet user would then have access to an up-to-the-minute national map for the first time in world history. This is how it always should have been and I'm glad that it has finally happened and excited about what the future holds.
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| If every web user in the USA corrected their local area in Google Maps then Google would then have more accurate maps but the web users would still only have a map owned by Google with Google's restrictions. If every web user in the world corrected their local area in OpenStreetMap, they would have an open, free-to-use map of the world with the underlying geo data available as well as. |
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| Great - Google is organizing data. Also great - Google is providing 'access to' data. But everyone fails to realize is that Google is also creating a monopoly that controls the organization of and access to that data. This is another example of them incorporating a disparate set of data elements into their broader set of indexed data - and while they make access to those discrete elements discretely available, they own and control the sole right to aggregate, assemble, compare, compile and yes! monetize the compendium they create. Meaning its not about knowing whether a street address is correct - its knowing how the 100 layers of data above and below that street address are interconnected. Information is power - and the more Google controls the information, the more power it will yield. Is this good? Bad? Consolidation of power under one authority has never proven to be the best, long-term solution - politically, socially or in business. |
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| Wait, isn't Google supposed to "not be evil" Hmmmm.... |
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| "NSDI efforts reflect this situation." Now that's spoken with truly diplomatic ambiguity. |
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| I'd say that's a fairly blunt statement, actually. And certainly correct. How many millions have gone into 'collaboration' projects run by the FGDC, et al, that have resulted in no progress and continued bureaucratic wrangling? Probably a few month's worth of Google's investment in a national basemap, actually. That said, what HAS been done is accessible in tools other than Google. You pay your money and take your choice, or you pay nothing and get what Google gives you. Not exactly a Hobson's choice - but at the rate Google is going it may well be in future years. |
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| None of what Google has done would have been possible without our tax dollars spent on the TIGER MAF Modernization program. The bulk of Googles map is the 2008 TIGER file which has excellent spatial accuracy and excellent addresses. Google owes the US tax payers a debt of gratitude for putting this great map into the public domain. If Do No Evil is more than window dressing to Google, why not allow State, Local and Federal Agencies access to the data for download so that they can use it to really "Do no evil"? Land Planning, resource analysis, environmental impact could really use this community updated map. It may get greater traction than OSM due to the superior Google tools and larger number of eyeballs and therefore be more valuable in the public domain than OSM? Google, put your money where your empty motto is. |
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| It is interesting to read the comments so far about Google's ‘monopoly’, ‘power’, ‘control’ – being good or bad, etc. Yes, if Google provides a geodata infrastructure for the world’s population (well, the ‘connected’ part of the world, anyway) to contribute valuable updates to what could become a global geo database, then they also probably deserve the right to have some ‘control’ over that resource. As a new TomTom user, I don’t mind participating in their programme to collect updates from users - free to them, at a 'time cost' to me - if that means the service I get in the future benefits me as well, i.e. based on the updates of thousands of other users. Same for NAVTEQ's user info updating system. Yes, it would be good if the resulting datasets were totally free and available to all, without restriction, ala OpenStreetMap – an initiative and software that is providing a valuable service to the world, including on an ‘official’ basis to certain UN agencies. However, my experience with volunteer data providers is that, without some form of central oversight, control, management – call it what you want – the resulting quality of the data or service provided is nearly always uneven and in many cases unknown. Note that the US initiative to create 'The National Map' – using what was to be “volunteered” data from local, city and state governments – has not worked out to anyone’s satisfaction, including USGS – who can’t afford the billions it would cost to upgrade their existing topo datasets, let alone the scores of other attributes that could be included in a national geo data repository. As to ‘monopoly control’ – I assume that these commentators do not live in Europe – where more than one national mapping and cadastral agency (NMCA) has an effective monopoly on very basic and important geo data resources – some of which MUST be used for some legal purposes – and several of which must be paid for, in some cases at full ‘market price’. So...do we thank Google for this step – or fear them? I guess the answer to that is waiting out there somewhere in the future, when we begin to have access to a new, comprehensive, potentially ‘global’ geo data resource – and see just how Google chooses to exercise that ‘control’. In the meantime, I continue to send road/traffic updates to TomTom as and when noted – because I prefer to have real-time, updated info at my service, even if they control it, rather than end up in unwanted traffic jams or dead-ended at a road construction site that wasn’t there last time the database was updated! |
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| Jones writes: "Other efforts under development and test but not yet launched publicly." http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-building-maker.html ;-) |
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| All SDI literature cites benefits to the common person and for use by the common person as raison d'etre for SDIs. Governments spend taxpayers' money on data collection and then withhold the data citing security! Google is doing a great service by truly making SDI for the public. I look forward with great interest to the unveiling of 'work in progress'. |
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| And if people just got along, we'd have world peace. The easier it is to make these changes, the more pranksters and incompetents and even criminals will add their talents to the map. Not to mention those who don't want their location known to others. |
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| My previous post was done in a hurry. So here is a longer version! All SDI are government driven efforts and I used the word driven advisedly because the SDI train seems to be still building up steam. There is a lot of huffin' and puffin' but at the end there is still no movement. Sure we have a whole lot of standards and many technical issues relating to interoperability have been addressed. The issue of interoperability between organisations and between organisations and people is yet not addressed. It looks like the common person is willing to share data but the government departments are not. I thought this was true in my country, India but after hearing the recent podcast on DM regarding the FGDC meeting and having got a better view of INSPIRE during GSDI 11 I must say that our own NSDI is also running true to form! (Oh dear, have I mixed up my metaphors again!) The truth is government departments do not want to share data with each other except on the most guarded terms and with the public - never. In this context actions like OSM are natural reactions to public servant cussedness. What Google has done is to grab this opportunity to turn it into a business model. So what is wrong? The public gets what they want. The Public servants continue to be cussed and the NSDIs continue to huff and puff. Mistakes are there in every data set including official ones and pranksters abound in many places. Does it mean that we shut down the Internet and stop all data acquisition? |
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