Customizing Google Maps - Google Maps as a Development Platform

Designing not only a product, but also a platform for people to develop on, is becoming a superior strategy for developers. It establishes a particular developer, and it also stimulates innovation.

Making products double as an object to use in development puts the power in the hands of individuals. While a lot of advanced computer applications these days are designed by large companies (AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft Office, Yahoo, etc.), software engineers and marketing experts can only try to predict needs for software that they can fill. These traditional companies may also simply look for ways to accommodate people by supplementing existing programs, not developing a very useful resource.

People of all sorts who personally have a need to fill can be the sources of truly useful innovation. When trying to do something specific and not finding a program that works adequately, people are forced to design the project themselves (or hire somebody). They know the entirety of what their program needs to do for them, unlike large companies trying to predict usage. If they distribute their program, it is unique and fits a niche market, perhaps even establishing a new market. For instance, Napster has changed music and raised the controversy of large-scale file sharing; although Napster is gone, many similar programs have sprung up. The Napster trend was all started by a university student, who wrote the program when there weren’t others like it.

Some companies have been designing software that allows users to customize it. Video game companies like id Software saw the importance of user customization years ago. They have made games that are easily modified by customers. The tweakers can even implement new lighting systems, add features not in the original game, design new levels, and change textures and models. Essentially, they can build their own game without working at a software development lab, and they effectively make the existing game more playable. Many games, such as Doom 3 and far Cry, now come with level editors as part of the retail package. Products that are easily customized also allow software companies to lease their technologies to other developers, as id Software does when they charge other developers to use their game’s engine in other 3D shooters.

Google is on the verge of something much more useful than a game. The way that their services are being adopted into many different applications shows that its XML platform is easy to adopt and integrate into other applications. Some of these customizations of Google’s Maps have found unique and very helpful ways to present information. This adaptive technology should be a model for web services, as this is what promotes innovation.

It would be a shame to lose the flexibility of these maps due to terms of service conflict. Understandably, Google is probably protecting their own licensing agreements with the satellite imagery and is trying to control their bandwidth and intellectual property. If this service cannot be provided freely, perhaps Google can institute a licensing system to legally allow the tweaking.

Google’s ads are already displayed across the internet, even here on Developer Shed. Perhaps Google could charge a licensing fee for the technology to distribute it in much the same way as the ads. Or perhaps they could create an exchange system that allows sites to utilize Google’s features of they allow Google to place a box of ads at the top of the page. Anything would be better than restricting people to only using features that Google can implement on its own.