The long awaited launch of Google Maps Navigation beta has been released. I watched with awe, their official video and was indeed impressed. Many questions also came to my mind. Does the application work in Kenya? well something i am sure about is that the traffic data is not available. Well what are the features of this product, you must be like asking yourself. Well the feature list is here, www.google.com/navigation.. well this app runs on Droid, which i believe is like a PDA/phone.. i am getting tempted to acquire one. here is the link on the droid phone http://phones.verizonwireless.com/motorola/droid/?cmp=google-maps&utm_source=google&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=maps, the other issue with Google’s release of this is that it might cut the sales and thus revenues for Tom Tom and Garmin devices. On 29th the shares of these two companies dropped.
Well the other factor in the ecosystem that has been there between TeleAtlas and Navteq, who provide Google with the data that they use currently. This means that the value of navigation will be eroded. Peolple will nto be ready to part with money for navigation sevices.
Well what does this mean for Cloudmade, i i still believe that Cloudmade’s model which is vertical is better than Google’s horizontal model. Look, Google’s flagship products are Google Earth, Google Maps, they are are standard and one specification fits all unlike Cloudmade that gives developers options
Cloudmade are signing developers within key categories that they believe will drive massive volume. This is a real micro-segmented approach, aimed at driving traffic to thousands of narrow verticals. We’re already seeing this scale.
The other factor is Cloudmade’s style editor, that enables people to define styles of their maps, spot the difference, Google’s http://bit.ly/1i2N8m. and Cloudmade’s http://bit.ly/3HJiRh
Google is taking the fight to the people in the ecosystem, well the other people in the eco system have now not decided to take the wait and see attitide. Well for the time being i also adopt that attitude.
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