Finding and Getting Our Way With Google Maps

I have been using Google Maps for years since I switched from MapQuest. In all the years of using Google Maps I never came across a circumstance where any corrections were needed.

Until recently when I noticed my daughter's public school was missing from the map. I thought this was a problem as I had a fair amount of difficulty finding the school for the first time and considering that many people (myself included) rely on Google Maps to find places that I should correct the omission.

Google offers a tool to make these additions and corrections called Map Maker.

It's quite easy to use. There are text-box fields to enter or edit a name, address and contact info - all quite clear. The visual interface to plot locations on the satellite view is also easy to use, particularly if one is  familiar with GIS. It just requires using a simpler drawing tool to outline the shape of sites over Google's satellite view.

So I added my kid's school to the map and also decided to fix other sites in the area.

I did five changes:

1. public school added (by correcting existing entry)
2. park/garden added 
3. public ice rink added
4. change rooms (for pool and rink) added
5. variety store's location corrected (it was misplaced on the wrong street)

These changes took me no more than 20 minutes. There usefulness to newcomers or visitors to the neighbourhood would be significant, I'm certain.

So far I'm thinking that the tool and service (to everyone) is a great idea.

But then came their murky, dubious review process...

I appreciate the need for a review process to stop spammers, trolls, and vandals. But Google's review process is unnecessarily opaque and inconsistent.

Google will notify people of the status of changes made via a location's history webpage and email (although I found that email notifications only went out seldom).

Change #2, made it onto the map. It is the only correction that Google accepted.

Change #4 was added to Google Maps as I submitted it, but then removed a few days later.

Change #5 was quickly flagged as needing further investigation (the street address for the store was correct as is but Google had it marked as on a separate step - that is quickly able to see and shouldn't require investigation). Although I do get that with businesses they should check with the business owner to double-check.  About a month later and the wrong location is still on the map.

Change #3 was rejected as needing more information. No details were supplied on the precise or even nature of the required missing info except to a link to a general page about using the tool.

I was given the option to add more info to my change. The only info that I hadn't supplied was the telephone number and opening hours. I gave them our Parks and Rec department. Phone number and indicated it was only open during winter months and then resubmitted.

The second try at the ice rink seemed to have worked - partially. It doesn't appear by default on the map (as the park's seeming pool and off-leash dog areas do), but if you type in the correct name it will come up on the map.  That just raises another murky issue with Google Maps, why do they have locations that don't show up on a map unless you specifically search for them (particularly major public sites)?

Change #1 - the one that started all this - was rejected as the current (incorrect) information was deemed by a Google editor to be "more appropriate". I had provided a link to an official source - the Board of Education - which had the correct info as I entered it. What is more appropriate than the Board of Education?

This begs the question - To what authority does Google recognize?

Even worst Google did not give me the option to change or object to my entry (as I got with the ice rink). And Google removed all record of the change request from the tool's user history - so as to shut of any debate or trace of the issue permanently.

I got the name of the editor who rejected the change but Google provides me no way to examine editors' credentials or record. But it is safe to assume that they are not a Toronto government official or even a local, so why do they get such absolute, unchecked power?

Google does offer a forum that can provide some recourse and further information but it is unwieldy and frankly it is an unreasonable burden to make people use such a cumbersome process.

As a public service and a company and one that relies on user-generated content, Google has a duty to establish more rigorous, consistent, transparent processes.

I'm so put off by Google after this I will start switching to OpenStreetMap, a free, user-generated map. At least their review process appears quite transparent and any effort I put into improving them map doesn't add money to a corporate juggernaut.

What's the Best Blogging Platform for My New Blog?

Greetings from Oudtshoorn, South Africa

I started a new blog recently to showcase my postcard collection. I have been using Blogger (owned by Google) since September 2006 when I started this blog and I have also used other blogging platforms. But I haven't had the opportunity to really try some of the newer, hyped blogging platforms such as WordPress and Tumblr. Also, I have grown frustrated with Blogger and it's lack of visually appealing templates, its lack of innovative features, and its inability to be automatically imported into Facebook (I used to have this functionality, but Facebook took it away).  Blogger also has trouble formatting paragraph breaks and  blank spaces, when copying and pasting from other sources.

WordPress seems like the ideal solution for having full control of the design and features of a blog, but I wanted something really quick and easy to use. Also as the focus of my postcard blog is the visuals of the postcard, I wanted a design for my blog that was optimal for presenting visual content. I tried Tumblr and have not been impressed at all (I'll blog about my problems with Tumblr shortly) although it is really easy to use.

Before giving up on Blogger, I gave it one more try as it integrates really well with another Google product, Picasa. I've been using Picasa to polish my postcard images to make them suitable for publishing online. Picasa enables push-button publishing to Blogger, which would be good if it works.

A note on Picasa - although it does offer basic photo editing such as brightness, contrast, cropping, and special effects  - it doesn't have the ability to paint or fix dust/scatches on images as I need.)

I tried four times to use Picasa's publish to Blogger feature to work and it failed to post and lost all my work.

If the feature did work, there are still problems. For one, the blogging window that it opened doesn't have the full Blogger functionalities. So I can't time the post or add tags. It also doesn't seems to have the full formatting options either. And it only lets me post one image per post, which doesn't work for postcards as I'd like to post the front and back images. Finally, the geotag feature on Picasa, which seems promising appears to do nothing when published on Blogger - a great opportunity misssed.

So I'm not sold on Blogger or Tumblr. Does anyone else have any ideas on what an optimal blogging platform would be for me?

The Mobile Web and Everyday Life

My kid was away this weekend on a winter camp-out with her Brownie troop, so my wife and I used the opportunity to have some grown-up fun while she was away. So we invited friends over for dinner and planned a meal that was decidedly not kid-friendly (i.e. no grilled cheese).

I've had a smartphone for a few years now and used apps and the browser to access information before.  Normally, I use it for getting directions and contact info, weather, restaurant reviews, movie listings, news, or checking out my social networks via Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare.

But this weekend, I used my mobile device in some new ways for me and I was struck by how much having ready access to a wealth of information is improving the run-of-the-mill tasks of everyday life.  

First, while enjoying our kid-free weekend and having a leisurely visit to a cafe and planning the grown-up menu for our friends upcoming visit, we used my mobile device to find a recipe for good and easy margaritas.

Then we found the nearest LCBO and grocery store on my device to pick up the ingredients.

While at the grocery store, I used my mobile device to convert recipes my wife had in imperial units to metric.  Google's voice commands made this really easy to do (as I could never do such conversion in my head).

Finally, at the grocery store, as were planning a Mexican meal and were curious about a variety of unfamiliar peppers the grocery store had. We wanted a little spiciness (not having to worry about the kid and all) but weren't looking for peppers that would have us in an emergency room.  So I googled the names of the peppers, found out their heat factor on the Scoville scale and what type of dishes they were best for.  Assured that we weren't going to be causing irreparable harm to our internal parts, we ventured out and tried new peppers.

These changes can be banal or momentous, but there is no doubt that the access to information that mobile devices and the Internet are profoundly changing the functions of everyday life.

Geo-Services are a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry

Google released a report today that it commissioned about the economic impact of geo-services. I'm not surprised Google is increasingly interested in this area considering their extensive mapping and satellite imagery projects, not to mention their huge purchases last year of Frommers and Zagat.

What I was surprised to learn though was that the geo-services industry generates up to $270 billion of revenue globally - compared with $25 billion for the video game industry. Games are often hyped as the largest digital sector - but it's not even close.  (So I think I'm also in the right sector!)

The full study is available online but they released an infographic.

Click for a larger version
Infographic by Google, Oxera, and BCG (January 2013)

Google Drive is a Wreck

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Elegy for Yahoo

I remember when there was no Google and Yahoo ruled the roost. Google clearly dominates now in functionality and commercial success, but over the years I've maintained a devotion to Yahoo that began even before there was a Google. My experience with Yahoo, however, provides a lesson of how to lose customers and also reflects Yahoo's progressive irrelevance.

When I first signed on to the Internet in 1997 it was via Yahoo (at the public library even). I even signed up for a Yahoo email account before I even knew anyone who could email me. Over the years, I relied and loved Yahoo's calendar, notepad, document storage service, photo albums, toolbar, and of course their search directory service.

My odd email moniker for Yahoo seem destined. Even before my wife and I had Internet access, I told my wife in my sleep one day to email me. When she asked what my email address was I answered appropriately (and without irony as I was asleep): glen @ sleep. When my wife told me of my somnolent discussion, it inspired me to get an email account. Shortly thereafter, I was at the local library and when I went to create my email account, I mistyped my username. The name stuck even when I was later able to open other Yahoo usernames with more indicative usernames.

Even as bigger and better services came along I stuck with my Yahoo account. This was partly due to the time and learning curve to fully switch over to a new service, but also for sentimental and brand loyalty reasons.

As Yahoo shut down services or failed to innovate sufficiently, I was forced to switch to other services. First Yahoo shut down their photo album service and encouraged people to move over to their recently-purchased service Flickr, but with restrictive caps. So I moved to PhotoBucket and Facebook albums. Then Yahoo's document storage service, Briefcase, shut down and I moved to Google Docs. Then, as I started subscribing to more email newsletters, Yahoo did not have enough or sufficiently sophisticated filter mechanisms to prevent regular email avalanches. So I opened a Gmail account for my newsletters even though I don't like a lot of Gmail's interface.

It was just this week, however, that Yahoo dealt their own death blow with their "upgrade" to their calendar feature. As I juggle an endless barrage of events related to my studies, professional career, and my family life I rely daily on my online calendar. When I got my smartphone BlackBerry, I loved how the device's calendar synched (comparatively easily - via firewire) with the Yahoo calendar and email. I don't know how I could manage now my completely chaotic schedule without this functionality.

When Yahoo recently updated their calendar, they decided not to initially support BlackBerry synching anymore or even give an expected date for said functionality. Of course they didn't say this anywhere; I just kept getting cryptic error messages and had to spend way too long figuring out what the problem was through user forums.

Google offered full support for BlackBerry synching of calendar and email - and even does it wirelessly. Wireless synching is such a huge benefit that I can't imagine how I managed to plug in to synch.

As Yahoo compelled me to switch my calendar to Google and as I have already been using so many other Google services (such as for this blog), I figured it was easier to move all my remaining Yahoo account features over to those offered by Google.

So thus ends a relationship with a company that was so formative to my Internet experience. I'm going to miss my long-time bizarre email address (it felt odd to recreate an error to use it on Gmail). I would love to continue using Yahoo, if only to help the company maintain its David vs.Goliath status against Google and Microsoft. But ultimately user experience is more crucial than brand loyalty.

Google Is Ten Years Old

Checking out Bargainista's blog today and it brought to my attention two things. One Google is ten years old, as Eden states:

Can you even imagine a day without Google? I can’t. For the past 10 years, it’s helped make our lives easier by giving us all kinds of incredible online tools – and all of them are free! Bargainista, Sep 2008

I was surprised Google was ten years old, as it doesn't seem like that long ago we had to make do with Alta Vista for search and Yahoo for directory browsing. I remember responding to Google's early buzz by telling people Direct Hit is even better and Ask Jeeves was more fun. I also remember trying to convince Toronto companies of SEO back in 1999 and having zero luck so I gave up.

The second thing I discovered today from Eden's blog is this neat functionality on her blog to let one easily quote passages to their blog, called Zemanta Reblog. I've never tried it, so I figured it this was a good time to try it.

Academic Research Online Is a Walled Garden

I've been consumed for the past three weeks researching and writing papers for my Master’s program. I managed to write one paper an Internet topic (a semiotic analysis of folksonomies) and added as many Net references in the others as I could.

In the process of researching online on online topics, I noted two critiques of academia:
1) vehicles for searching online resources are inadequate
2) academic research remains too cloistered

The last few weeks were the first time ever for me that I was exposed to the wealth of electronic academic research. I thought there was lots of information on the Web before, but I was stunned by the quantity and quality of academic information available to students (the databases require log-in and an individual subscription is prohibitively expensive).

Royal Roads University has one of the largest electronic libraries in Canada, which is fitting as it is primarily an online university. Electronic information there takes the forms of:

1. e-books
2. online journal databases
   
3. electronic theses
   

I haven’t made the most of e-books, due to my dislike of reading for a long time onscreen and that e-books can’t accompany me to many of my regular reading places. The theses seem promising, although due to Royal Roads being a comparatively young university they don't have a lot of theses available.

Online academic resources a treasure, albeit hidden & sans map
I did extensively use online academic journals and this is where I was overjoyed and overwhelmed. I had no idea how many journals there were, some of which, believe it or not, aren’t completely esoteric.

There are essentially two problems that I discovered with online searching of these journal databases. Problem one is that there is a bewildering array of journal databases. Second, the search engines for pretty much all these services are, well, crappy. Granted, graduate students do require more advanced search skills than a normal online surfer would need, but still the search tools are unnecessarily complicated, buggy at times, and just plain miss things. I found a lot of instances where I was searching the entire body of articles and certain results would not appear, but later, having found these articles via other means, I would find the terms appearing prominently.

The journal database search engines were so generally poor that I had to use other means, serendipity being the most painful method for time-pressed procrastinators such as myself.

Google Scholar helps save my day
Fortunately, someone turned me onto Google Scholar. I found it retrieved items from academic databases better than the databases own search, plus Google Scholar pulls up other applicable information as well. Truly a very handy tool - thank you Google!

Ivory towers cloister useful research
My final complaint is that while I was also surprised by the quantity and quality of academic research on Internet topics, I was miffed that I never saw any of it before. I’ve worked in the Internet for years, have read books and articles, and been to conferences and was never exposed to this research before.

Granted, it is possible that this research could have come to me via other authors and speakers who digested and regurgitated it. Also, it's not like the research is fit for wider application as can be exceedingly and, I might add, unnecessarily obtuse and elitist (another complaint, sorry). But some research is fine for everyone working in the field as is, and in other cases the findings could be repurposed for wider distribution.

Frankly, I think that too much of academia is infatuated with itself and doesn’t make enough effort to share their research to the outside world. With this attitude one ends up with research for research’s sake. And those, like me, who can benefit from the information don’t get it.

I Don't Get Google's Holiday Logo!!!

I love Google's changing logos, particularly around the holidays. Some of them are really cool, funky, or clever.

The current one is too clever for me though.

I don't understand it at all! Mousing over it reveals "Happy Holidays" so it definitely was intended to represent Christmas. There's some sort of Santa-like figure made out of ribbon, this I can discern, but why is Santa being whipped around by a crane? And why is the crane hanging some poor construction worker? How does this all wish me a merry holiday googling?

I feel like Elaine on Seinfeld just not getting the cartoon in The New Yorker. If you can figure it out, please let me know below!!!!

BTW, Yahoo copied Google awhile ago and started changing their logos every now and then. As a victory for Canada (as if the higher Canadian dollar lately wasn't enough) Yahoo Canada's logo is much nicer than the main Yahoo logo! (Ah who am I kidding, it's not like anything Yahoo Canada does anything in Canada. Their tiny office on Toronto's Front Street I've heard doesn't do anything except sell ads.)

Dec. 23 Update: Google changed their logo to another weird construction holiday logo and I'm more mystified! It appears they may be working towards something, click on the logo to see the others in the series. But I still don't get it and it's not making my yuletide festive, rather frustrating!

Vanity Search

In an episode from The Simpsons a few months ago, Marge discovered the Internet and quickly succumbed to the temptation of doing a vanity search, that is searching for your own name. She then exclaims:

Wow, and all this time I thought 'googling' yourself meant the other thing!

I'll admit that for years I've been addicted to it.

I don't just google myself (though Google does make it much easier as you can set up an alert to search for you automatically and email you as soon as you are mentioned). I also check out the other search engines to see if the things I want to show up (such as this blog) are any higher.

There's another Glen Farrelly out there and I've determined he is my nemesis and I want obliterate his results to fourth or fifth page oblivion. There's also a Glen Farrelly who's a football player and I think his results add a cool, rugged dimension to my personality.

Other than the Google vanity alert, there hasn't been any great tools to search for you (even going to Europe after highschool didn't help me ever find myself). It's also possible that you could be searching for information on other people too, but my thoughts on recently developments were focused egotistically.

A few months ago, I tried Zoominfo but was unimpressed. A search for me returns only four individuals all of whom are me. I signed up for the service to customize my results but was unable to.

Lately, Spock.com has been getting some buzz. It's still invitation only, but last week I left my name and email address and a two days ago I got my invitation. I tried it out and searched for me again. Now the results were all distinct, unique Glen Farrellys - and it returned more Glen Farrellys than Zoom did. Spock uses LinkedIn, MySpace and other sites as their basis for distinguishing people and populating with some profile info. I tried searching for my wife and friends and they were no where to be found, though they are all on LinkedIn and Spock supposedly scours it. Also, I tried to claim the Glen Farrelly identity that was mine by entering my LinkedIn password as requested, but after four attempts I haven't been able to.

So Spock has work to do but for a people search and vanity check, but it is promising.

Google Webmaster-of-the-Universe Tools

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