Local Googler helps test Map Maker in Canada
Posted Oct 25, 2011 04:26:54 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Google is looking to improve its maps with help from users. The company has launched Map Maker in Canada.
Google Map Maker lets users sign in and add things like roads, bike trails and their favourite local businesses. The idea is to build a digital atlas that’s constantly being updated.
James McLean is a software engineer at Google’s Kitchener office and got a chance to test out Map Maker before it’s launch. He lives in a small town outside Barrie and says that gave him a unique perspective. “Being a rural community, it meant that, first of all, there weren’t a lot of other Googlers necessarily living close by me,” he explains. “It also meant that as I looked around on the map, there were all sorts of interesting things that I know about from my day to day life that weren’t on the map yet.”
McLean says he was able to add and correct information on his town’s community hall, which was listed in the wrong spot, and the general store which was listed as a post office on the map.
Google says about 20 percent of its searches are location based so adding the kind of specific detail that only locals may know, will help users find exactly what they’re looking for.
Users with a Google account can make changes to the map at http://www.google.ca/mapmaker
