Last year Google declared to close its online tool, Map Maker through which anyone could make editing to Google Maps. Through this nine year old service, users could update new and missing map guide, like places of interest, business data and much more. This was particularly valuable in setting up maps in developing market, where point to point maps were not accessible frequently.
According to the company, Map Maker was to be shut down in March 2017. A post on Google’s help site declared that Map Maker officially retired on Friday, 31st March, 2017.
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Google also said that over the past years, users contributed millions of features to improve Google Maps.
Reason for shutting Map Maker down
Surely, running Map Maker wasn’t always easy. Sometimes the updates by its users caused serious troubles. For instance, there was a time when the people used the service to destroy the image of Google Maps. They posted a photo in which a Google Android character could be seen taking a leak on the Apple logo. There were few other following incidents due to which Google, in order to strengthen its security, temporarily closed Map Maker.
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However, in the long run, the service started to cover excessively with Google’s local guides. This guide is a program that prizes controlling clients for updating contents to Google Maps, and is basically revolved around enhancing professional resources.
Local guides take over
Moving along, most of the editing features of Map Maker are being taken over by local guides. These features include filling and editing places, sharing extra insights about a place, directing alters, viewing edited status, and most recently altering street segments. Google says that these features can be accessed through both mobile and desktop.
Google, when announcing details about the road segment edits said that it would add more features in it. Subsequently, these features will allow users to report missing roads, report issues and later, report core information, such as dead ends and events.
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As local guides take over the Map Maker community, their contributions to the Google Map will be awarded. Google also stated that better control encounters were underway, as well.
image: Android Central
