Google Building Out Non-US Maps Data With Users

Aug 3, 2007 at 12:11pm ET by Greg Sterling

Brady Forrest at O’Reilly Radar reports on Google’s GPS-based “crowdsourcing” strategy to get local data on Maps outside the US (specifically in India). While Google has enormous amounts of data for the US and EU, in selected countries there’s much less data to plot on Maps. Accordingly Google is relying on users (e.g., My Maps) to create the data that forms the bulk of the content in certain countries.

While Google didn’t share specific numbers, they told me they’ve been surprised by the volume and quality of user-created maps and data being uploaded.

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, and writes a personal blog Screenwerk, examining the broader world of media and advertising. He also posts at a Local Mobile Search, which is focused on the mobile Internet.

See more articles by Greg Sterling >

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