Map Makers and People Finders
Everyone uses Google Maps: we realized (even more) how good it is after the disaster that was Apple Maps. In the US, of course, Google uses its famous self-driven cars to go around places and collect data to populate the Maps and Street View databases. But in places like India? Jessica Pfund, Google’s Maps Product Manager, said: “We couldn’t buy maps in India. It wasn’t a question of money; there were just no maps to buy… Naturally, our engineers (in India) really wanted their hometowns to appear on the map. ” Which is why came up with Google Map Maker, an online tool to allow users to fill in maps with landmarks and details. This was way back in 2008 and India was among the first countries where it was launched (It was launched in the US in 2011 and in the UK only a few months back! Well ok, in those countries the maps were already so good, but still…). It works Wikipedia style, with users correcting other users. But do Indians actually fill in such maps? Do enough of u...