Monday, June 30. 2008

Tele Atlas/Google Deal: TA Gets User Generated Markups

Update 2:It's not exclusive: "TeleAtlas already has an agreement with Google for which details aren't available. The new agreement is non-exclusive, Titiular said." (CNN)

Update: This from Ed Parsons at Google: "This does not include Map Maker contributions." Thanks for the quick reply Ed!

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Per C|net:

Under the new agreement--financial terms were not disclosed--Tele Atlas will provide maps and "dynamic content" for Google Maps in over 200 countries as well as other Google geographic divisions like Google Earth and Google Maps for Mobile, and future Google projects that could require mapping data. Tele Atlas, in turn, will have access to annotations that Google Maps users have added to the system.

Exactly what annotations? The PR says:

The agreement also gives Tele Atlas access to edits for its maps from Google's community of users, whose suggested changes can help thecompany further increase the quality and richness of Tele Atlas maps.

It's not clear if this means the Map Maker contributions and or the "moved addresses." Hopefully, someone in the know can clarify. If Map Maker turns out to be something effective, that is, something that creates "good" data in timely fashion, this could be a boon to TA's (TomTom's) data stores. It would mean that others who license TA data would benefit from Google's mapmaking fanbase, along TomTom's map updating MapShare fanbase. Those are two potentially large, worldwide free data collecting groups. If TomTom is smart, it already thinking about how to engage the OpenStreetMap crew as well.

One other question: Is the sharing of the markup exclusive to TA? Or will Google do a similar deal with NAVTEQ/Nokia? I'm thinking not.