Maps in mobile phones, GPS navigators and computers needs to change. There is no value for a company to owning their own maps of the world except that they will be outdated.
There has been a lot of discussions about Apples change from Google Maps to Apple Maps, in Sweden Gothenburg was placed in the sea and alot of other reports of maps showing wrong information. I think it’s interesting that this is happening, Apple’s Map data provider is TomTom and I have never heard of any problems with map data in their GPS navigators. Has Apple bought the 1999 edition of Maps from TomTom?
If the maps in iPhone where social these glitches would have been easy fixed but now when Apples maps is locked in there is a need for an update from Apple. Lucky for us there are more alternatives for iPhone users, Waze is one tehere are probably more out there, but are they social?. There are also open map sources like open street maps that users can edit and change the information within the maps. This is social power, user created maps with meta data. Perhaps services like Waze should move to use this kind of map sources instead then the true social power will show.
Interesting with Waze is that it will send data from your smartphone back to waze servers and out to other Waze users, and if there is a jam that will be automatically reported to other users. And a user can report accidents with text and pictures.
Another aspect is that one could use Waze to is to take a photo of the hot crowed places are when people is out on i.e. a pub night. Take a photo and write a text why all the action is happening at a certain pub tonight
