Add your local knowledge to the map with Google Map Maker for the United States
Before Google Map Maker—a product that enables people to add to and update the map for locations around the world—only 15 percent of the world's population had detailed online maps of their neighborhoods.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google had already opened map creation to users through MyMaps in 2007 and showed in 2009 that user-made map data could support driving directions in previously uncovered regions. Map Maker extends that participatory mapping model to contributors in the United States.
The launch matters because Google frames local contributors as a way to fill gaps in detailed neighborhood-level online maps, rather than relying solely on centrally assembled map data.
First-order effects
- U.S. users can add and update local map information through Google Map Maker, enlarging the pool of contributors available to improve Google's map coverage.
Second-order effects
- Google's mapping operation gains a contributor-driven route to identifying local gaps and changes, while the usefulness of Map Maker depends more directly on review and integration of public edits.
Third-order effects
- If contributor edits continue to feed usable mapping features such as directions, online maps may increasingly compete on the scale and quality of local participation as well as on base-map coverage.
The trend: Digital mapping is moving toward user-contributed local data as a complement to centrally built map databases and services.