Army of volunteers helping Google Maps

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google on Thursday, March 31, revealed that an army of citizen cartographers is behind its widely used mapping service, helping the Internet search giant chart the world, including often inaccessible places.

Volunteers from various countries post updates on their neighbourhoods or travel to remote places to map the area before uploading their findings to Google Map Maker, the company said at a conference in Singapore.

Contributors can add new roads and landmarks or debate with neighbors about the names of streets on the virtual map, which is constantly updated with new information.

Google Map Maker allows people to add or edit features, such as roads, businesses, parks and schools, and give detailed information about the locations.

"You are now the mapping agency of the world, and many of the mapping agencies are recognizing that fact," Google's geospatial technologist Ed Parsons said at the Google Geo Community Summit attended by contributors from different countries.

"The large, top-down approaches to making maps that traditionally the industry has followed for many thousands of years are changing very rapidly," he added, AFP reported.