Google Maps Exodus Continues As Wikipedia Mobile Apps Switch To OpenStreetMap
from the location,-location,-location dept
Last year, Google announced that it would begin charging high-volume users for access to its previously free Maps API. It seemed like an odd move. Jacking up the price on something, without actually offering anything new to entice customers to stay, only works if you have a total monopoly—and free competitor OpenStreetMap was already growing rapidly at the time.
Not long after the Google announcement, we reported that property search engine Nestoria was jumping ship to OpenStreetMap. Then, in March, news began to spread that Apple was making a strong push to move away from Google Maps data on the iOS platform. FourSquare also abruptly switched. Now the exodus is continuing, with Wikipedia announcing that the latest versions of its mobile apps for iOS and Android have also ditched Google Maps for OpenStreetMap:
Previous versions of our application used Google Maps for the nearby view. This has now been replaced with OpenStreetMap - an open and free source of Map Data that has been referred to as ‘Wikipedia for Maps.’ This closely aligns with our goal of making knowledge available in a free and open manner to everyone. This also means we no longer have to use proprietary Google APIs in our code, which helps it run on the millions of cheap Android handsets that are purely open source and do not have the proprietary Google applications.
One wonders how Google didn't see this coming—or if they did, what exactly their strategy is here. OpenStreetMap is gaining a lot of momentum, and in some areas even features much better data. The real lesson here is that there's never an incumbent that isn't at risk of being unseated, no matter how widespread the adoption of their product or service—especially if they make an anti-customer decision like Google when it put a price tag on Maps. The situation also points to the long-term strength of open solutions: while a crowdsourced system like OpenStreetMap never could have put together a global mapping product as quickly as Google did, over time it has become a serious competitor in terms of both quality and convenience. Indeed, none of the companies that have switched pointed to the price as their number one reason—potentially superior quality, and the desire to support open data, are generally listed as significant factors. Location-based tools are a rapidly growing field, and by failing to stay ahead of their more open competitors (while becoming less open themselves), Google may have sacrificed their role as a crucial engine driving such services.
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Filed Under: crowdsourcing, location, map, mobile, open alternative
Companies: google, openstreetmap, wikipedia
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your argument makes no sense
you also said the switchers claimed cost wasnt a problem.
....that completely negates your point.
The reason google added a fee is because this type of thing is expensive to maintain. they wouldn't have added the fee if they thought they could do it without a fee, and if their competitor thinks they can do it with no fee, more power to them, we'll see how well they fare after their initial seed money runs out.
you seem to be attacking google here, and for the life of me, I cant seem to put a finger on why you are doing it.
Sure, they are losing non-paying clients to openstreetmap... but they aren't losing money in the process.
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Re: your argument makes no sense
Google is a business, not a charity.
Further, let's make it clear - Google maps will be around for a very long time because it's an integral part of what Google does. They have a spare billion or so dollars a year that says they can keep doing it.
Google has made a very shrewd move to get away from being the source of choice for the largest freeloaders on the net. That's not a bad business decision at all.
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Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
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Users vs money
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Re: your argument makes no sense
If you depend on advertisement every time you lose eyeballs you lose money.
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Re: Users vs money
It's quite amazing that people donate money to charity too I suppose.
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Re: Re: Users vs money
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Re:
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Photofunia
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Wow really
Google is a business, it seems most it is ad revenue.
Techdirt is also a business. Information propagation/discussion. Most of its revenue is from ads I'm sure. Start discussing or get off of here lol.
That being said, this is a very interesting move on Google's part. While their overwhelmingly complete maps system has driven them search engine customers for years, the burden has finally reached that point.
There are no ads on Google's maps, therefore it generates no direct revenue.
Instead of adding ads to their maps (as they easily could have), they forced the world to provide maps for free.
Now Google doesn't have to send gigantic chunks of visual data as often, saving server load.
Unless another company starts driving around cars with panoramic cameras on top, you won't see street view anywhere soon. That fact will continue to drive customers to their platform, which is what they want.
Google basically just agreed with an idea, that maps of the world should be free. Those who switch to open source will have to deal with ads. I for one am not to upset at this move.
I continue to applaud Google for its innovation and business tactics. I also continue to dislike Google for its data mining and the fact that its WAY too big to fail.
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and BTW
That's called politics, and I'm hoping its the next bubble to pop.
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Re: Wow really
Google maps is really suppose to be a value added service for Google users, and something that drives traffic to their site. If it provides a free service for someone else's visitors on someone else's site, and doesn't drive traffic, it's pretty much NOT what Google wants or needs the product to do. They are still allowing lower volume users to keep using it, and are only addressing certain high volume accounts.
So if your API is serving full graphic pages, and is doing so with a low clickout rate, you are pretty much running a charity. That really isn't what Google is all about.
Google agreed only that maps should be free provided it drives business to the rest of Google. They didn't agree to being everyone's favorite freeload service.
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Something else?
"In the early days you needed a GPS, but today, Microsoft, where I now work, donates all its aerial imagery to OpenStreetMap so you can just look at aerial pictures and draw the features on top of them."
Microsoft being generous or something else?
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Re: your argument makes no sense
Another thing many people don't realize, every option with the service has not always been free. They have for some time offered enterprise level accounts that cost $10,000/month that enable extra functionality not available to users of the free service. For instance, https access is not available through the free service.
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Re: Re: Users vs money
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Re: Wow really
Don't be. Happens a lot around here. Especially when they have no real feedback on the subject. Ad hom appears to be the sole debate tactic used by AA supporters.
As for google maps ?
It really wouldn't surprise me if google wasn't planning some sort of lawsuit based on a bullshit patent or some twisted variation of copyright law. This seems to be the way to go when a competitor appears. Google has the financial muscle to do this, regardless of the actual merits and basically run the free competitor into the ground. It wouldn't be the first time a large corp did this and got away with it. If this is the case I would not applaud this particular tactic.
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Re: your argument makes no sense
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Re: Something else?
It will take many, many years for Google to lose the general audience on Google Maps. People are still using AOL while on broadband... there's really no other explanation than extreme consumer inertia. Losing the big companies is definitely a PR hit and results in less visibility, but I'm sure they crunched the numbers. As long as Google Maps is fully integrated with the rest of their products, and as long as they don't fall too far behind OSM in terms of usability and features, they're probably just waiting for the competitors to feel the pain of having to provide free maps while other companies use them to get rich.
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no big deal
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accuracy
I don't think Google has much to worry about here.
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Re: Re: Wow really
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Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
Er... all what iOS comments? I'm an Android user, and I love Google.
As for all the other objections people are raising: I highly doubt Google's goal here was to lose users. I'm not bashing them - I'm wondering what their strategy is here. Google offers *tonnes* of services that are expensive to maintain but don't make them much direct money, because Google tends to employ a castle/moat strategy.
Now, if Google was for some reason hoping to drive users into the arms of OpenStreetMap, then that would change things... but I see no indication of that
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Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
Really? Because they operated YouTube at HUGE losses for YEARS - at one point it was estimated to knock $1-million PER DAY off their bottom line. But they didn't abandon it - they knew it was important to be at the top of the video game, and that they would slowly figure out how to monetize it (which they did)
I don't see why mapping/location is any different.
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Re: your argument makes no sense
....that completely negates your point.
I probably could have worded it better but: no, switchers ABSOLUTELY claimed cost was a problem. They just didn't say it was the *only* or *primary* problem - but it was a serious motivating factor in their decision.
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Re:
Intentionally or not the free service undermined the others and starting to charge for it can and probably will be seem as a trust issue.
In the past companies used this same pattern to gain control of markets, outspending others and then raising prices when there was no one left. This definitely doesn't look good.
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Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
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Re: Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
There is no path to profitability in the api.
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Google differentiates itself from openstreetmap, through streetview, geocoding, place and business api, google earth 3d maps, and now indoor mapping.
Google maps is one of the most popular google services, and they are quite sensibly going to charge for its use in a commercial setting.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
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Quote:
Digging for superfast broadband and other tech news
Now that is a motivated bunch.
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Re: Re:
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Switched to MapQuest
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: your argument makes no sense
That doesn't mean that Google maps doesn't work, only that the API doesn't seem to permit much in the way of traffic to get to Google's site. That they targeted particularly high volume accounts sort of tells you where they are with it.
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just as planned.
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Google could maybe find a way to monetize this. Give businesses some extra benefit to Google maps. Perhaps location specific ads? Or maybe a way to click on a business and get a description that the business has access to and can update, it can include specials (kinda like when you drive by a business you can see posters and whatnot on the business regarding its specials) the description appearing right in the Google maps GUI. In return, the business can pay a small yearly fee for having such access. It could be better than just an open forum where anyone can edit a description and sales specials including those who don't belong to the business. I know, these are just brainstorming ideas, and I'm sure Google and others have tried similar things already with editable descriptions so most of these ideas are nothing new, but maybe something could come out of it.
Businesses benefit from Google maps because they get access to customers who look up their location. If Google could offer them some benefit to customer access for a small fee ...
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Re: Re: Re:
MapQuest web service since 1996.
Multimap operated since 1997. (Acquired by Microsoft in 2007 and merged with Bing Maps)
Pictometry International born in 2000(before Google Maps in 2005)
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Re: agree with Mr. Sim
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Re: and BTW
Apparently you have been reading some other site. Techdirt is all about making a point, and supporting Mike's political views and public speaking career. This site is often a public testing of the themes and ideas he will use in his next speaking engagement.
Techdirt is all about "making a point".
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Re: Re: Re:
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Re: Streetview
Provided that they could deal with the data traffic, OSM could crowdsource the streetview process. I could easily take pictures of both sides of the street that I am on, for the whole block, in about 10 minutes. The full panoramic process might not be manageable, but I could easily do a series of 8-compass-point shots of streets in my area.
How someone could stitch all this together, that I'm not sure about, but getting a reasonable amount of data should not be that difficult.
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Think of how many map API calls something like ForeSquare or WikiPedia make.....
Literally tens to hundreds of millions of hits without ANY of the revenue getting back to Google.
Google do not push any form of advertising or anything they can gain revenue from via the API, therefore what is in it for them serve up data costing real money to these services.
The beauty of OSM is not the map tiles per-se, it's the data. Sites can periodically grab the updated data and generate their own map tiles in their own style and not put that great a load on the OSM infrastructure.
Pity not a lot of them are doing this.
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Re:
MapQuest is embracing OpenStreetMaps, will they donate code and resources back?
There is a lot that could happen this move could be great or bad depends on how things develop.
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Not so fast....
What requires a key is Google Earth - which is free "to a point" and their mobile api which is much more limited.
This makes sense to me. The free API drive traffic to Google's sites and ad revenue. The pay-for APIs are really targeting the Apples and other large users - and as stated by previous posters - Google doesn't benefit from supporting their largest competitors who are not also driving ad-revenue back to them.
Also, not sure about the rest of the users here.... I'm not seeing the Exodus. Every once in a while I see a Bling map - and that is really it. And no one has an API that is as fast or as polished as Google's (and yes I'm talking about Google's free service) or as supported by such a huge developers community.
Every successful company will have its haters. But it's sad to see hating just because of success. Google's not abusing its power here, and I think they are well aware of where their success comes from - which parallels very closely the values found here on Techdirt.
-CF
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Some incumbents have armed protection
That is essentially true in the marketplace. In fact, the bigger the profits a company is milking by exploiting its size and dominance, the greater the incentive for others to come up with a replacement, or close enough substitute.
The one exception to this are incumbents that are "regulated" by a government. In most cases, this means they have the government given right to be the sole provider of something in return for oversight by politicians or bureaucrats with regard to price and service levels.
In all cases, this leads to inflated prices, and bad service as the "regulated" firm uses the police powers of the state to keep competitors out, and establishes prices by bargaining with said politicians and bureaucrats then in response to competition and consumer choice.
Therefore, the only regulation in public interest is to keep to ensure free entry and exit in competitive markets.
We the people might recognize that market monopolies are temporary. Government monopolies last much longer, and damage a lot more.
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Re: Some incumbents have armed protection
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On trying OpenStreetMap I found an immediate problem where the Map moved my house a half mile from where it actually is. Kinda reminds me of MS's mapping software!
I found MapQuest hard to use in that once I turned a feature on I couldn't turn it off. That's probably unfamiliarity with MapQuest more than a bug/feature. At least it got my house in the right location!
Yes, I can see Google wanting to charge heavy users of the system a fee-for-access. While I don't see it as being wrong from what I'm reading they could have found a couple of hundred ways of communicating it better to customers like Wikipedia who may have been one of the largest generators of traffic to Google Maps and may have had to pay under the existing structure.
Google Maps has been monetized for years, even if it's hard to see. Each of those little pointers to businesses, churches and other locations such as museums are paid for. In their way they're ads, often invaluable, to the businesses they point to.
It's ironic that one project that's charging for access now, Google Maps, is being dropped by another that Google sponsors, Android, because of the additional costs.
My, admittedly, quick experiences with OpenStreetMap and MapQuest do illustrate one thing clearly and that's what I said at the top of this post. Google Maps are normative. People are used to it and how it works and, worse for OpenStreetMap and MapQuest, the information it contains which is nothing short of enormous.
It's not that people will reject either in the long run. The Phone directory publisher in Canada has used MapQuest for years, for example.
This leaves me to wonder if Google won't reverse itself or revise the pricing structure in order to being some of the fleeing customers/users back.
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Re: Wow really
And thank god. It's bad enough that Google does it.
This doesn't follow. That something is open source says nothing about the revenue model of companies who use it.
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Re: and BTW
Actually, it is. This is called out specifically on the site's about page. Techdirt is an opinion blog (opinions are all about making a point) that centers on the intersection of politics, technology, and society.
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Re: Re: Something else?
It doesn't matter. The map data is the important part, and that is covered by a CC license. That means that other people will (and probably already do) offer up map servers. If the OpenStreetMap servers went away, there will be other servers offering the same thing.
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Re: no big deal
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Re: Wow really
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Not only that, but also terms of service issues...
I found that since the time I had logged in last to OSM 18 months ago! the sheer amount of information has been overwhelming. In one case, after editing a small section (where I happen to live), it was almost scary to see how my neighbours were doing the same from pretty much just the street layout, in less than 48 hours, a suburb with 18.000 residents was mapped to a level of detail that most applications cannot even display (e.g. like showing tiny walls and hedges between individual family homes :) ). Obviously, the million people submitting geo data to OSM are doing a great job, slowly beating Google with their "few hundreds" of employees working specifically on Google Maps and having access to unlimited searching and cross-indexing power, and, of course, billions of US$ to buy geo databases from zillions of providers. Nevertheless, a million people can really do a great job.
But it's not only that. With the licensing changes, some things started to become questionable using Google Maps. Sure, if I put a Google Map on my (free) blog, that's fine. There might be a limit, but few people visit my blog daily, so I don't bother. But what if I put the same map on my corporate website? Theoretically, since I'm not making money from the site itself, this is fine for Google. But indirectly, by attracting people to my company, who will in turn make my company earn money, Google's licensing terms might apply. Or, if they don't, I might need a lawyer to explain that to Google.
Tricky.
But it gets worse. On one site for a customer, they have an application to list events (and their locations). Most events are free to attend. I'm using a plugin to manage all events and, of course, display a Google Map. But my customer also has a few paid events, and at some point, they will need to upgrade this plugin to allow registration and payment. The upgrade costs money, and the company providing the upgrade makes a living out of their "freemium" plugin that way. My customer, in turn, using this plugin, will be able to earn money from events. So who is violating Google Maps' terms of service then? Me, as a developer? The company providing a paid plugin that uses Google Maps? My customer who sells access to events and uses Google Maps to display maps next to the event venue locations?
Trickier.
So having all this in mind, obviously I'm not complaining about Google. They're a business, and they're tired of having start-ups building upon their freely available information which takes billions to maintain and get rich without paying Google anything. The same happened to Google Translator as well, but mapping might be even more serious so many people are touting mobile integration with mapping as the best use case for mobile apps, and so many use Google's resources for free, that Google had to put a full stop to it. It's understandable. As Ryan so well puts it, Google doesn't place ads inside Maps, so "someone" has to pay Google for their willingness to provide so much cool information. That is now the case with their new licensing terms. But it means that if you're not willing to pay Google "something", you have to use some alternative instead or face possible exclusion by Google, if they figure out you're providing paid services on top of their free maps.
@TtfnJohn you're right about being "normative". However, your argument that OpenStreetMap "[...] moved my house a half mile from where it actually is" doesn't hold! Just log in to OSM and move your house back to where it belongs! That's the advantage of OSM: you don't need anyone to "correct" your data for you (like most commercial map providers do and like Apple's messy use of TomTom data!). You just log in, use a very simple online mapping tool (Potlatch 2), and just correct what's wrong. Very easy. It takes a few seconds to move a house around. After a few hours, the OSM map caches will be flushed and the new data will be public. What could be simpler than that?
In fact, I do that all the time, specially when working with maps for customers. Their location seems empty? No landmarks are visible on the map to help potential visitors figure out where to find your location? No problem. Log in to OSM and add all the relevant data. Even if it takes a few hours, so what? Once it's there, everybody can see it. In fact, this perfectly egoistic view of OSM (just add what is relevant to YOU!) actually works wonderfully, since a million volunteers are adding what is relevant to THEM, and, through that, beating any other freely available map provider in terms of detail.
Oh, and there is a nice extra feature, too. Since OSM is not a "one-size-fits-all" technology, but rather a lot of technologies working together, even if a customer complains and says "Google Maps have a much better way of drawing maps!" you're not limited to use a "default" provided by the OSM main site. You can style them yourself and, if you're lazy, you can use any of gazillions of different styles that are freely available, many of which look so much like Google Maps that they're undistinguishable at a first glance, except, of course, that they will have massive amounts of more information.
And if they don't, why worry? Just add the information yourself.
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Re: Not so fast....
Also, what is more important from the perspective of the end-user having the most wonderful API of the world (which will only be relevant to developers) or having content-rich maps, crammed full of information?
And finally, having taken a look at some weird ways of adding map locations using the Google Maps API, it made my eyes water in frustration. Sure, embedding a map is the simplest thing in the universe. Making calls through the Google Maps API is... well, I'd say, "acceptable and reasonable". Not "excellent".
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