Back in the days of 'No Smartphone' but Human connections, we used to rely on someone's guidance with their past travel or commuting experience to travel throughout a city. and some privileged travelling people used to have GPS devices which were quite handy if you know how to operate. They are still being used in forest areas, oceans where there will be no satellite or telephone networks there were physical Map sheets, they were only limited to class rooms and offices . Slowly the map gadgets were introduced by some major companies which used to be bulky , expensive and had limited map of selected cities. Gradually they became the must have gadgets for car owners like Television for any household.
But, the booming of internet enabled the maps to get introduced on the desktop/laptop browsers which were later introduced into smartphones . Currently, maps are so integrated in our daily commuting that we even use indoor maps to surf around big box retail stores.
A major name which made maps a default on smartphones is Google. Google is a company which has become so famous that people use the word google as a pronoun for searching the information on the internet ( google it) . Google has several services which it gives for free to the public worldwide. Google maps is one of them but probably one of the most used services.
Google map offers the visual/audio routes to the destinations around the world from any point on the planet. Though it gets the map data from the governments and the satellites, it is very difficult to maintain the up to date map data of the world .Hence it had introduced a tool called or App (
Google Map maker)to facilitate the regular update of the any places on the planet which will be managed by the public and moderators around the world.
Google map maker lets you to edit the details of a place or you can add a new place which you do not find the on the google maps. You can edit any aspect of a place like spelling of the name , the exact physical location, the working hours, landmarks nearby, the website details, the contact details and so on. Once you edit or add a new place, it would go to google map maker dashboard and it will be reviewed either by moderators or anyone who has the knowledge about that place. Once it gets approved, it will be officially added to the google maps. I have had added/edited few places out of which some requests were denied and some got approved and published.
Recently Google made an announcement that it will be closing/retiring the google map maker starting from March 2017 . This is not a surprise move but obvious. As mentioned by the google in the
official announcement, they have integrated all the features of google map maker into Google maps itself so that it is easy for the public to access, edit and review the places. why do we need duplicate service... ??? right !!
Like many other Google products, Google map maker is also going in archive but it has served its purpose very well and will remained to be and integrated in the google maps.
Miss you Maker !!
