bwb123

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a way to make money (any amount) using a gps to provide information to map companies or whatever. This may be a dumb question but I was thinking so many things change as far as map making for instance that this may be valuable to someone. I know satellites provide a lot, but sometimes there is no substitute for being on the ground. Anyway, any information would be appreciated. Thank you!

BulletBlades

Are you proposing to drive around and have the gps record the coordinates of the roads and you sell it to map companies like Teleatlas? It's... Doable, in a sense. You'll have to go though a lot more trouble though, after driving down such and such road, you'll have to assign the coordinates of that road a name, and find the individual coordinates that the road has intersections at, or even more troublesome, the exit's of highways. But if you're willing to do that then yes, it's possible.

GNSS

Possible? but not practical as you really have no way to quality assure your data with a GPS like that.

bwb123

Thank you for the replies. As far as what I what I'm proposing, I'm open to any ideas.

About my situation: I've been using a Garmin 60csx for about a month. It's my first experience with GPS. In this short time I've noticed a fair amount of map data on Google, Yahoo and Bing is either missing or inaccurate to the point that the map definitely needs correcting/updating. Thanks to BulletBlades I'm now looking at Tele Atlas and a few others. Definitely a more professional experience. I also see Tele Atlas has a "Map Insight Consumer Reporting System" very similar to "Google Content Partners."

From Tele Atlas: "Users enter information directly into our easy-to-use Web-based forms for communicating new changes to us. Then we group reports by type (traffic restrictions, new streets, etc.) and cluster them by geography to help create projects for our teams who research and update the map data."

So they are wanting data that will be confirmed later via the team projects. As long as you are able to conform with their data formats, I suppose this more or less answers the quality control issue raised by GNSS. The description continues:

"The feedback we receive from consumers helps us detect and manage changes to our map data more quickly, so that we can keep our maps accurate and up-to-date."

Although comparatively rudimentary, consumer-provided data that may lead to creating projects for company teams seems like a very valuable service. And realistically how many GPS enthusiasts are there compared to the amount of this kind of data I'm sure a company like Tele Atlas would very much like to have?

Again with Google Content Partners, their help section says "...we generally do not pay for the content..." For the purposes of this topic, I suppose the key word here is "generally."

Apparently enough GPS enthusiasts exist that big profit-making companies can rely on them to provide a significant amount of valuable data for free. Interesting concept. Nevertheless I'm thinking a niche might exist for people on the ground who are not a traditional professionals but at the same time have a more focused understanding of a map company's more pressing/profit-making needs, their protocols, etc., and hence could provide more valuable (i.e. pay worthy) data than comparatively random persons who undertake data submission more or less as a hobby. Perhaps there is a relationship at first where one provides the information gratis and talk of pay develops later. I know this does happen in the working world.

The Tele Atlas idea is definitely not out of the question for me although from researching the website I'm not sure of the best way to approach them or any other company for that matter. I suppose there's always the unsolicited email query.

I can see this is an involved issue but if anyone can offer comments or suggestions on any part of this I would appreciate it.

sviking

$300 GPS?

I'd be asking about making money with a low $200s GPS because you paid way too much for that 60CSx.

bwb123

Actually I didn't pay anything for it. A friend of mine gave it to me when he upgraded. It's in excellent condition too. I came up with that dollar figure after a search on Amazon. I should have just named the model.

Hope this doesn't put too much of a damper on your amusement!

sviking

Awesome deal for you! Just thought $300 sounded a little high. I got mine new on Amazon FROM Amazon last year for $229. No regrets, either. Great unit!

BulletBlades

As far as approaching the companies a bit of research on their sites will most likely yeild answers. If not a quick google quarry will most likely help you, and there's no reason to thank me, I'm nothing more than a 15 year old rookie drabbling in GPS's until something new stikes my fancy.

RemixedCat

Reporting errors or getting hired at one of the two companies is all you can do since they are closed source maps (Open Street Maps is Open sourced) and I don't know how often they hire people. I often find tons of mapping errors with all 4 services in my areas I traverse.

NAVTEQ's is accessed at mapreporter.com
Teleatlas has thier Map Insight at thier main page
Google has the forms right on the maps
Open Street Maps has several direct editors: flash based, java based, .exe based and smartphone app based.

The only one you can freely have control over is Open Street Maps Project. I invite you to contribute to make something the world can edit, change and not wait for the big three to change. However, there would be no direct income from them, however if you create your derivitive works and sell a gps unit for businesses you can attribute them properly and possibly bank on it I don't know the complete commercial terms. CloudMade has more information on this kind of rebranding if you are a mapping site or a potential GPS company.

Social mapping might be the next big thing! Who knows mabye the other two might warm up the idea!

bwb123

Thanks for the info!

sviking

Hey, Remixed, how have you been? Hows the GPS paper coming?

RemixedCat

I took the trip and review will be posted shortly. Thanks very much for your interest!

lavicia

Maybe you should sell your service as seller :-)

RemixedCat

I will post the review shorlt on my blog but it won't be as deep as I thought but it will still be good.