Cabbies, students help Google find street landmarks

Whoever you are — teacher, student, administrator, company executive, investor, researcher or banker — you can't do away with Google, the Web site that opens up the world to you.

Google says that is not all. If there is no one around to tell you about the significance of, say, Red Fort, Taj Mahal or Charminar, just take a snap in your smartphone and post it as a query — which can be done even verbally — and you will get the answers. In Korea, 30 per cent of all Internet users prefer verbal queries.

Navigation tools

In the West, people can depend on satellite-powered GPS to guide them to their destinations. In India and a host of developing countries people use shops, hotels and temples as landmarks as they drive their way to their destination.

Quick to realise this specific problem, Google found an answer to this too: It began to encourage local communities, which include drivers, college students and other professionals, to generate maps with landmarks.

“For one, we invited professional drivers in Bangalore to contribute whenever they find time as they wait for their clients. We gave them access to necessary tools such as ‘mapmaker' and it worked,” Mr Vinay Goel, Head of Products (Google India), told newspersons here on Wednesday.

With the help of communities of volunteers, the company has been able to build a sizeable database of landmarks in several cities in India, including dynamic information on public transport. While Google provides satellite images, communities dot landmarks on them.

Working well

According to him, the model has worked wonderfully. “It is working in 180 countries. In Pakistan, we could build a detailed map for Lahore in just three days,” he said.

Mr Vinay spoke of other trends taking place in the search realm. The way people searched is changing every day, as the world witnesses 400 crore searches every day. “Earlier, search results used to be very static. Now, we are offering real-time results (for sporting events and other developing events),” he said.

With regard to searches in Indian languages, he said though the search site allowed searches in 16 regional languages in the country, lack of content remained a roadblock.

Competition

Google, which has been facing stiff competition from social networking sites, says it is not afraid of the Facebooks and Twitters. “We welcome competition. It is all good for the Web. If Web succeeds, Google succeeds. There are still 400 crore people who are not on the Web,” he said.

COMMENT NOW