Google's Penny Pinching Is Costing It Customers
In October, Google announced that it would begin charging heavy commercial users of its Google Maps service in 2012, in order to “secure the long term future of the APIs [application programming interfaces] as location aware applications become ever more ubiquitous.” The Google Maps API is by far the most frequently used API on the web, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr. The new charge, which Google estimates will only affect 0.35% of all Google Maps users, has prompted some map-using companies to seek alternatives. In a couple high profile blog posts, start-ups Nestoria and Fubra have publicly announced their switch away from Google Maps.
“It’s nice to be thought of as one of the 0.35%, but not so good that the costs of using Google Maps on this particular site would be more than it earns in advertising revenue,” writes Neil Sweeney, a front-end developer at Fubra, whose World Airport Codes site made frequent calls to the Google Maps service.
“Is belt tightening really needed at the same time as Google announces record revenues and profits?” asks Ed Freyfogle, the co-founder of real estate search engine Nestoria.
Both Fubra and Nestoria have announced a switch away from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap, an open-source, crowd-sourced mapping project starting in 2004 by Steve Coast. OpenStreetMap is free to use, and relies on Wikipedia-like edits from volunteer users. The site recently surpassed half a million users, and its maps, as Sweeney points out, are sometimes updated more frequently than Google Maps.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2011/12/27/googles-penny-pinching-is-costing-it-customers
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