Google Maps is one of the more reliable map services that most people rely on and, understandably, the company keeps investing in new features for the service. Launched in 2008, Map Maker was one such feature that allowed users to add places, and edit the existing ones where the mapping data proved to be insufficient. However, the company has now shut it down in favor of integrating its functionality into Google Maps itself.
For the uninitiated, this video by Google might clear up what Map Maker was all about:
Google's support page for the service states:
Since 2008, the Google Map Maker community has edited and moderated millions of features to improve the Google Maps experience. To make it easier for all Google Maps users to contribute changes to the map, we’ve started to graduate functionality from Map Maker to Google Maps on both desktop and mobile.
The tool was marred in controversies for the last few years with contributions such as the Android peeing on Apple "prank" that slipped through Google's approval process. The company even stopped accepting submissions for a while, before reopening them a few months later.
The corporation has been making quite a few additions to its mapping services recently, but its editing features are still a far cry from the flexibility of Map Maker, which allowed people to draw buildings and landmarks among other things. Maybe if Google fixes moderation of the content, it could bring these features into Maps itself. Until then, R.I.P. Map Maker.
Source: Google via Ars Technica
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