RouteGuru Founders on Google’s landmark-based Driving Directions Launch – “Thank you Goog”
[Google launched landmark based driving direction few days back and while it did validated some of the market hypothesis, it does look intimidating to a few startups who are trying to build their niche in this space (how can a startup take on Google? Is this the death bell?), but there is ofcourse something good about it.
Routeguru founders share their perspective and the road ahead.]
We vividly remember the day, May 26, 2007, when we (RouteGuru) launched our key product, landmark-based driving directions. All major digital media blogs in India went abuzz with the appreciation for the innovation as well as speculations about scaling it.
Last week, Google introduced landmark-based driving directions, a global first for Google Maps. The news about this launch found a place in Google’s worldwide blog as well. And once again, all major digital media blogs, this time globally, are abuzz with the news.
While some of them (e.g. Google Maps Mania, pluGGd.in) recognize that we pioneered this innovation, the others are either ignorant about it or chose to ignore it.
This post is to:
- Thank Google for evangelizing landmark-based driving directions,
- Highlight how our technology and product are better than Google’s.
So, Why Would We Thank Google?
Google’s incorporation of landmark-intelligence in driving directions is a great validation for the need of landmark-intelligence in navigation. In fact, users worldwide are claiming how they need this in their countries as well. We believe that a multitude of online map companies and navigation players, from global leaders like MapQuest.com to the smaller ones, will now open up to landmark-intelligence. And if they want to compete with Google, they will need this technology. Indeed, in the past few days after this launch by Google, we have seen new interest in our technology and business from markets that were foreign to us till now.
And why is RouteGuru’s technology better than Google’s?
Following are a few ways (not exhaustive) in which our technology is better than Google’s:
- It is much easier to find locations on RouteGuru. On the contrary, there is much noise on Google Maps due to crowd-sourcing of landmarks. For example, it is (as on date) difficult to search for a famous location like ITO, New Delhi.
Location Search on Google:
Location Search on Google
Location Search on RouteGuru:
Location Search on RouteGuru
- Correct starting orientation (the first step in directions) is important in giving effective directions. While Google’s blog post does talk about using landmarks to orient the user correctly, the feature is sparsely visible on Google Maps in reality. But RouteGuru does use a landmark to orient a user:
Starting Orientation in Google:
Starting Orientation in Google Maps
Starting Orientation in RouteGuru:
Starting Orientation in RouteGuru
- In reality, one often uses structures like “overhead tanks” as landmarks while guiding somebody. RouteGuru makes use of even such landmarks while Google seems to miss out on them.
- In spite of the fact that Google must have plenty of landmarks in their database, appearance of landmarks is (comparatively) sparse in Google’s directions. On the other hand, RouteGuru’s technology manages to use an available database of landmarks more richly in driving directions. Please compare directions for any pair of locations to know the difference.
- As the user tends to rely on landmarks included in driving directions, they need to be “positionally accurate”; else, they can misguide the user like nothing else can. For example, if McDonalds falls on my left side in reality but the map tells me that it will fall on my right side, I may head in the opposite direction. This (positional accuracy of landmarks) is one area where Google will need to be very careful, given their apparent reliance on crowd-sourcing of landmarks through Google Map Maker.
What’s coming up new in RouteGuru product?
“This comes as no surprise as it was only a matter of time before one of the Internet giants realized the strategic importance of “landmark intelligence within driving directions”. Many of our admirers, friends, regular users, bloggers and journalists are contacting us to learn, “What now?”, “What it really means for RouteGuru?”, “Is it really the end of story?”
I candidly want to communicate that it’s a good lesson for us about what can it really mean when big companies talk to you and how we end up communicating many things unknowingly. It’s an emotional hurt to see someone else reaping the benefit of an innovation pioneered by us and for the small entity that we are, we can only feel helpless.” – Piyush, cofounder on his pesonal blog
In the past one and a half years, we have done further research on how people give or consume directions in unstructured terrains. Thereby, we have identified and solved another key problem, the problem of the first-mile and the last-mile.
In the absence of addressing structure in such geographies, it is magnificently difficult for map-creators to geocode all addresses and for programmers to write elegant search-engines to search a user-input address in an address-database.
Even if the location is properly mapped (by the map-creator or a user), the first-mile directions (directions from the starting point to the nearest major landmark) and the last-mile directions (directions from a major landmark near the destination to the doorstep of the destination) are where the quality of automation does not match up to the ad-hoc directions given by humans. And the traveling user often wastes time in figuring out these parts, particularly the last-mile.
RouteGuru has devised an innovative approach to solve this problem elegantly.
Before closing, we welcome Google to the universe of landmark-based navigation.
[And we would love to hear from you. Please send your feedback to “Feedback at RouteGuru dot com” and alliance proposals to “Alliances at RouteGuru dot com”.].
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Related posts:
- Google India Launches Landmark based Driving Directions for Maps
- RouteGuru :: Get the driving directions (even if the streets have no name)
- Y! launches India maps with new features: Landmark based driving, can calculate auto rickshaw fares too!
- Google Maps (India) softly launches Driving Directions
- Exclusive: RouteGuru launches On the Go SMS Service
About the author - The article has been contributed by guest author. If you would like to share your opinion/insights/write a guest post, please get in touch [ashish at pluggd.in]
That’s a damn bold response and awesome effort RouteGuru. I always loved using your service…
And I would repeat Priyanka Chopra’s tweet: The end is always good. If it is not good, then it is not the end yet.
Impressed to see Indian startups take up genuinely on Google.
(adding this comment to subscribe to followup comments)
Inspite of the examples, they have a tough road ahead, that of scale. Google seems to cover a much larger portion of India and gets the results ok. I tried a sample e.g. kolhapur to miraj which it does ok with. Covering a few metros will not match up in the long term. Even people in metro want to travel. One niche is giving the best tour routes. e,g Chardham, Ashtavinayak, Tirupati, Shirdi etc. as travel for religious purposes is high in India than anywhere else due to the shear number of deities, relitions, sects, etc.
Is it just me or are these guys (at Routeguru) salivating at the prospect of being bought/funded asap by someone thanks to the ‘validation’ of this space by google’s entry?
~Pranav
Great stuff.
This is also an example of things taht one needs to keep in mind when evangelizing a space.
Speed is the big deal – Routeguru was launched in 2007 and had minor improvements in the last few years. Infact, they are still present only in NCR, while Google tried out crowdsourcing and several other initiative..
Unless they have a patent, I dont think this argument stands a chance. Goog/Yahoo will wait for somebody else to innovate (atleast yahoo will
), and IMHO RG lost out the space they created bcoz of their own fault..they shd have scaled up fast..
but that’s the irony of running a startup..esp. cash strapped one..will look fwd to what RG plans in near future.
All the best to you guys1
Great going routeguru team.
I really appreciate your approach. You guys are taking this heads on. Wish you guys a very best of luck.
I am not sure what are we talking about. To an extent it looks like a campaign (or last attempt) to reap the benefits by pulling Google. Looking to create sympathy wave or promote yourself by associating yourself with Google (terming them as unfair competitor).
If it is a campaign then I think your next, probably last logical step should be sue Google, even if your IP is NOT protected. That way you can get better media coverage on the same lines of above post.
If it is only an emotional story to re-energize yourself, then I don’t see any reason of promoting this talk. There was problem lying. Different people were trying to solve it through routes. What is the metric of ideas owner – Who worded it first or who excuted it better. I think its later, and as long as you qualify for later – Consumer will keep as the owner.
I know I am sounding too harsh, but I have a feeling now that RouteGuru team is desperate to sell the co. and the post is actually addressed to Yahoo and MS and NOT us.
Though how innovative RG idea is and when you enter the already crowded map space having all big players, your idea is just a weeks or months time to implement as part of their strategies whether it’s MS, Yahoo or Google. Google entered this space and you are blaming them. The only way to survive is keep on innovating and exploring with your ideas and expanding your horizon to other cities.
This is not bashing against your idea but the reality of the innovation aka snatching the smart ideas by biggies. Unless the startup realizes to be fast paced in competing with biggies, the next big/small/smart/innovative idea follows the same path. Anyway, keep your spirits up and keep innovating new ideas.
It seems like Google is getting into a habit of getting “inspired” from innovative ideas developed by start-ups. Similar to your “landmark-intelligent driving directions” idea, Google has recently launched its Google Wave platform, for “Communicate and Collaborate in real-time”. The firm that i work for, Colayer, a Swiss-Indian start-up has been working on the same idea for the past decade now. Here are a couple of media articles which corroborate and sound freakishly similar to ur blog.
Sakaal Times http://bit.ly/6BwJwk
Origin of Spaces, Pune Mirror http://bit.ly/L6Nge
Interview with Markus Hegi, Internet-briefing http://bit.ly/bTold
Dude did it occur to you that you did not take your technology/business to the world for last 10 years ???
RG and your case does not fall in the same league. why to blame google for your defenseless in this battle?
What I find amazing in Google’s initiative is the use of local community to provide the landmark database and then use that data to provide land-mark based directions on the pervasive Google maps.
I do not think anybody deny that Route-guru offered this first, but there is no comparison between these two. You are comparing a kind of preview edition with a 2 yrs old service. Give Google maps 6-12 months and then compare which one becomes better. With much larger reach, directions will become much better much sooner on Google than Routeguru, as community corrects it for Google. And Routeguru offers just one city even after 2yrs later.
Landmark based navigation is not Route-Guru’s innovation. The internet based service is. But then, how can RouteGuru hasn’t stolen the map based directions on the internet from the rest of the world, leave alone 1000s of years old landmark based navigation. And it does use Google maps to present its own routes. So…??
What a huge difference it will make if Google could add its own innovation of “Street Views” to those directions? Landmarks in text is something. But a picture of that landmark really makes it the most intuitive way of looking at the map.
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