Create your own mashups with Google’s MyMaps
Google has introduced a very important feature to Google Maps: MyMaps. Tucked into the sidebar on the left in Google Maps main screen, MyMaps enable everyone to create their own maps. The features are as follows:
* Mark your favorite places on your map.
* Draw lines and shapes to highlight paths and areas.
* Add your own text, photos, and videos.
* Publish your map to the web.
* Share your map with friends and family.
Obviously, this is going to hurt startups that based their business on enabling users to create Google Maps mashups, like Frappr, Platial , Flagr, and many others. Mashable is even going so far as to say that this means instant death for all Google Maps mashups, while Om Malik says that consequences for these startups will be dire. I’m sure that a small number of such services will find ways to stay competitive, but it’s obvious that a huge majority of them can simply close their business right now because it’s game over for them.
While this is definitely a legitimate move by Google, it raises questions on whether it’s smart to ever start a company dependent on another company’s data at all. I’d say that, at the very least, you have to be very, very careful and know exactly what your exit options are before starting such an endeavor.
April 5th, 2007 at 5:58 am
Yeah, it’s fun I played around with it for a bit.
April 11th, 2007 at 4:03 am
[…] If big corporations which own social networks and other Web 2.0 products and services keep blocking users from sharing and doing mashups; or cutting them off by introducing their own versions of whatever the people are doing, people will get annoyed. I for sure wouldn’t like to spend hours making my own music video on Photobucket just to get it cut off from MySpace. Or creating my map on Frappr just to see it going out of business because Google launched MyMaps. […]