Comments on: RouteGuru Founders on Google’s landmark-based Driving Directions Launch – “Thank you Goog”

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By: Murali

Murali — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:36:13 +0000

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.

By: Murali

Murali — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 06:06:58 +0000

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…??

By: rakshit

rakshit — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 11:21:43 +0000

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?

By: Akshay Dabke

Akshay Dabke — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 07:17:30 +0000

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

By: Murali

Murali — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:03:07 +0000

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.

By: Rav

Rav — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:18:00 +0000

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.

By: vb

vb — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:49:06 +0000

Great going routeguru team.

I really appreciate your approach. You guys are taking this heads on. Wish you guys a very best of luck.

By: sandeep nambiar

sandeep nambiar — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:29:49 +0000

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

By: Pranav

Pranav — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:08:16 +0000

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

By: jake

jake — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:22:33 +0000

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.

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:35:55 +0000

(adding this comment to subscribe to followup comments)

By: naman

naman — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:11:43 +0000

Impressed to see Indian startups take up genuinely on Google.

By: arvind

arvind — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:59:13 +0000

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.

By: arvind

arvind — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:51:50 +0000

That’s a damn bold response and awesome effort RouteGuru. I always loved using your service…