> What you describe are not community features, but rather "user-sourced one-way value creation," ie. you can't benefit from the content you contribute unless Google takes unilateral action to allow you.
It's not very different from, say, Metacritic or Steam or Amazon reviews or Goodreads. Or this HN forum, for the matter. These things unfortunately have a network effect, and it takes a critical mass of editors to make them worthwhile. Maps has that first mover advantage, coming out the same time at OSM but seeing massively more adoption, especially when it comes to POIs like restaurants and such.
I find that OSM has better and better geography, but its POI layers are still lacking modern conveniences like contact information, reviews, and photos. Its UI is still pretty primitive and opts for miscellaneous tags instead of useful primary business attributes. Generally I just find it harder to use, and harder to share with others. I feel like it's juuuust near critical mass, but not quite there...
But in regards to:
> What you describe are not community features, but rather "user-sourced one-way value creation," ie. you can't benefit from the content you contribute unless Google takes unilateral action to allow you.
It's not very different from, say, Metacritic or Steam or Amazon reviews or Goodreads. Or this HN forum, for the matter. These things unfortunately have a network effect, and it takes a critical mass of editors to make them worthwhile. Maps has that first mover advantage, coming out the same time at OSM but seeing massively more adoption, especially when it comes to POIs like restaurants and such.
I find that OSM has better and better geography, but its POI layers are still lacking modern conveniences like contact information, reviews, and photos. Its UI is still pretty primitive and opts for miscellaneous tags instead of useful primary business attributes. Generally I just find it harder to use, and harder to share with others. I feel like it's juuuust near critical mass, but not quite there...