We're always interested in hearing your feedback and feature
suggestions. Use this group to share your thoughts, and I,  along with
the rest of the Google Maps Guides, will make sure that your comments
shared with the rest of the team.

Thanks in advance!

Maps Guide Brian

Let me preface my comments by saying that I am a huge fan of Google
Maps and Earth, both professionally and personally. I can easily spend
hours looking around the world. I also recently used Google Earth to
help plan an overseas trip.

I am a search marketer for a telecom company. On a whim I added all of
our central office location to Google Maps. Some might say that this
is not an appropriate use of Google Maps but I disagree. We sell DSL,
which is a distance sensitive product. Customers must be within 2.5
miles of a central office. For this reason it makes a lot of sense
that searchers would use maps to find a DSL provider. And our results
confirmed this notion. We received over 300 calls in April from people
who had found our listings in Google Maps.

Unfortunately, our listings are no longer available. This is where the
feature request comes in. I would love to know why. It would be great
to get feedback within the management interface, think Ad Words style.
I think this feature is more than warranted considering the large
number of unanswered questions in the “for businesses” section.

Additionally, it would be great to have much more open communication
with you guys. That is not so much a criticism as a request for more.
When our listings disappeared, I went looking for answers in all the
usual places a search marketer would go. What I did not find surprised
me. Search marketers are generally a chatty bunch, but there seems to
be no collective knowledge about Google Maps.

Switching gears, I like that we can get data on the performance of
individual listings, however with over 2000 central offices, I would
have to click through over 50 pages to see what listings are
performing. It would be great if you could click on the column headers
and have the listing ascend/decent by that field. Or when you export
the data file having the performance data go with. That way I could do
all my number crunching in Excel.

Finally, how about a feature in Google Maps to show service area? I am
sure that anyone who provides a service from plumbers, to fire
stations, to radio stations or companies like us, would love to draw a
circle around their location and say this is our service area.

Let me know if I can help you guys out. As I said I am a big fan, and
look forward to seeing how this service develops. Feel free to contact
me

Chris

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

I'm glad you asked. My suggestions pertain to Google Maps Mobile
Edition.
1) It would be great to add the new Physical map (topo/terrain map) to
the mobile version. I love it on the desktop website version.
2) In the mobile edition, the software accesses the GPS built-in to
the mobile phone. It's using the latitude and longitude to find the
position. It would be nice to be able to display the lat/long/altitude
on the map, even if it was only stored in a Favorite so that you could
see it somehow.
3) In the mobile edition, its nice that you can search for directions
and show the route on the map. It would be really cool if you could
record a "track" on the Google map mobile edition, save the track, and
email it. This would be the killer app.

Thanks for listening.

Jamie
TRAILSOURCE.COM, Inc.
http://www.trailsource.com/

On May 22, 12:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

Matt

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 23, 6:19 pm, Gifters <Gift...@gmail.com> wrote:

It would also be useful to be able to add comments when editing a
place or road, i.e. "Crab Shack's new location as of 5/20/08" or "Road
moved; construction scheduled to be complete in June of 2008".

How are edits verified - do other users rate them?  Does Google staff
look at each one? I think that having users rate (and maybe comment
on) edits would reduce your workload - you could focus on features
rather than perfecting the data set.

Mark

On May 22, 2:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 24, 8:10 pm, mark <mpic...@gmail.com> wrote:

It would be awesome to have paved, off-road bike trails shown on the
maps.  Right now the only way to see them is with the satellite view
on the highest zoom.  If bike trails could show up on the map view in
a different color then the streets, that would be a huge help!  Other
than that, I love your maps!

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

I'm sure you must get this request a lot, but I'd like to add myself
to the list: Please add an "avoid toll roads" option to Google Maps.

Thanks.

Luis

On May 22, 2:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

Thanks again.

Luis

On May 28, 11:21 am, "lsala...@gmail.com" <lsala...@gmail.com> wrote:

Had an idea about Google Maps, which I now use almost daily, having
recently moved to a new part of the country.  But it literally took me
30 minutes to figure out how to make a suggestion.  I have a
postgraduate degree in Science and have been on the 'net since it's
modern inception.  Shouldn't have taken me that long to figure out how
to make a suggestion.  I googled this: 'suggestions for google maps
application' and it didn't take me here.  Then I got worried that
maybe I am an idiot, that there was an easier way, and emailed my
NetOps significant other and asked him to find how to make a
suggestion (very rarely, he is more savvy than I).  He gave up after
10 minutes.  Why is it so hard?
Granted, the 'idiot' option is still available.

For Google Maps, how about a feature that maps out more than one route
at a time?  On the same map.  Same starting place, different ending
places.  Same starting and ending places, two routes.  Same ending
place, two starting places, especially helpful for those of us who
don't work with our spouses.

I think this would be a super groovy feature.  I can't think of a
reason to have more than two routes and I have no idea how difficult
adding a route/destination to an existing search would be to code.

But I hear you guys are super smart.  I have faith.

Best
Gina Pagani
gpag...@uci.edu

PS - I totally and whole-heartedly second Gifters' suggestion below.
I recently drove across the country (Boston - OC, via Houston) and we
had argue with the maps application to give us what we wanted.

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 22, 1:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

I'd like a dynamic latitude/longitude readout option where my cursor
hovers.  Alternatively a point and click response would be ok, if
that
would be too burdensome for dial-up users or slow bandwidth
connections.

My suggestion is to include walking or biking directions which
includes time to walk between origin and destination. With the price
of gas these days, more and more people are walking and biking to
work, etc. It would be very helpful to be able to set walking routes
and have an idea of how long it will take.

Al

Recently, we were looking for hotels, vacation rentals, B&B's, etc. in
Mass. After doing searches for accomodations and then having to do a
search on Google Maps of the distance from where we need to be each
day to the hotel or whatever, we came up with the idea:

1. Search for a location on Google Maps
2. Specify a business type, name, whatever to search for
3. Specify a distance (radius) from the original location to seach
4. Search and enjoy...

For example:

We will be spending lots of time at the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion,
MA. We need to find accomodations in the area within a 10 mile radius.
We go to Marion via Google Maps, input a search radius, input
something to search for (Days Inn)....and then hit the search button.

Sounds like a winning idea to me!

Cartographer
Salt Lake City, Utah

P.S.  If I'm posting in the wrong area, please direct me to the
correct one.

On May 22, 12:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

I think the Google Maps integration in the iPhone is a godsend. The
ability to map an address entry in your iPhone (and regular OS X)
address book in one click is great! The only issue I've encountered is
that Google Maps can parse addresses that include "Apt. #" or "Suite
#" but cannot parse ones that specify "# Floor" (e.g. "3rd Floor").
This seems like an easy fix (correct me if I'm wrong) and would make
the search experience that much more seamless and awesome.

Hope you guys can address this soon!

Kevin

On May 22, 2:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 30, 5:32 am, nahcnivek <nahcni...@gmail.com> wrote:

Right now, I can't figure out is how to plan by bike or similar.
Clicking 'by car' or whatever gives me no possibility to switch to
bike. However, for my country there are a lot of roads that aren't
viable with cars, but are with a bike or by foot. When I wanted to
plan a trip based on some directions I got from a friend, I was unable
to use the built-in planning feature. I tried to make a route from my
starting point to my destination, and then drag it along to suit the
trip. However, it would completely refuse to take the small roads. As
an alternative, I plotted my own map and tried to follow the roads,
but that is rather timeconsuming and errorprone (and nowhere near as
pretty, either).

Likewise, how about some simple tools to properly interact with the
map? There's a scale for example, but I'd like to draw a quick line
and be able to measure the distance between two points without regard
to roads. Similarly, a way to disable various parts of the map would
be awesome because sometimes, you just get too much information for
your liking. I may not care about paths for pedestrians, or whether
there's a lake besides me. Maybe I only want to see the highways, and
not the urban parts. Same for names of places. Google Maps is pretty,
but seeing just a little bit less can mean so much more sometimes.

And now something particularly for routes.. when I plan my trips,
which are pretty large and in need of printing, it tends to suffer
from the above case of too-much-information. I tend to photoshop
everything out except for the crossroads on my path and their names,
giving me a clear idea of what streets and such I should be passing.
(Some are quite tiny and easy to miss, even if you're afoot, and I'm
no directional miracle myself.) If something of that stretch were
possible, it would be nice too... although it might be a bit too
specific for Google Maps to do.

-Jan

1. Let's say I want to put placemarks for a single company serving
multiple cities. Right now, I have to create a separate pinpoint for
each city. This shows up on the left column as multiple pinpoints with
the same company name. There should be a way to map one single colored
pinpoint or polygon to multiple locations. These pinpoints could be
differentiated by adding description to it.

2. Related to the above feature, I would like to be able to search the
available pinpoints. If multiple pinpoints are mapped to the same
color and company name, I would like to be able to search the company
name and have the corresponding pinpoints highlighted on the map.
Likewise, if i were to search "Company Name, Chicago", the specific
pinpoint with the "Company Name" as its title and Chicago in the
description would be highlighted on the map.

Cheers,
Moses

On May 23, 4:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

I have a request similar to the recent feature update that allow
pinpoints to be re-ordered within a mymap.  I would like to ask that
there be a feature to allow re-ordering of the maps themselves.  At
this time the maps created are listed in chrono order from most recent
created (Map4 Map3 Map2 Map1) I'd like my maps to appear in custom
order (Map1 Map3 Map4 Map2).

Thanks in advance!

Isabel

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 22, 2:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

Thanks for soliciting user input.  I use Maps/Local through SMS to
find listings a lot (to search for a specific restaurant or something
on my way there).  It returns an address and phone  but would be even
more useful if it returned the nearest cross street as well.  This
would make some places much easier to find.

Maurice

On May 22, 11:43 am, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote:

On May 22, 7:43 pm, Maps Guide Brian <maps-gui...@google.com> wrote: