Communal Masses, Meet Google Map Maker

The word “community” is a very strong word in this new, digitized world.  From Wikipedia to YouTube, the beneficial effects of a community-driven environment are not only obvious, but essential to the betterment of the internet.  A sense of  community brings out awareness, efficiency, and self sustainability wherever it is applied.  But you don’t have to tell these things to Google; they already have the community hard at work for them.

This is called Google Map Maker.  Google Map Maker is a tool that allows the realm of Google Maps to evolve and adapt via the help of us, the community.  Essentially, this is how it works: If you, a Google user, are surfing Google Maps and find an issue in the location of your favorite restaurant or bar or whatever, you can now add or edit a point to make Google Maps more accurate.

As one can see, most points of interest in Google Maps can be modified or created right inside your very own browser.  Furthermore, one can add things like whole polygons (for mapping out large points of interest) and lines (for bike trails and such) for the betterment of the community as they search the world map.  Once your editing is finished, the revisions you made are then sent to others for a pending review.  Simple and efficient.

To advertise this new world of map revitalizing, Google has released this Map Making Pulse webpage (shown above), which jumps across the world showing you in real-time pending updates that local people are submitting to improve the map.  If you are interested in finding more about the details of map making, you can check out the official Google Blog entry on this new feature.

Google Map Maker is the future of community driven cartography.  Christopher Columbus, eat your heart out.