Did Google beat Streetmap, or did Streetmap let themselves lose
Before the Googlisation of everything on the internet, I used to absolutely love Streetmap. We once met them to discuss business opportunities and I thought - wow, I wish I'd done this. Such a useful, innovative service with so much potential. So it is a sad day to see that the likes of Google can allegedly use the courts to quash small pioneering startups.
We're meant to be championing small businesses and helping them to grow into new giants. But it seems all that ever happens is ideas are allegedly "copied" and built upon much faster by big businesses with deeper pockets who simply smother innovative startups; the same startups who truly should be recognised for having the dream and turning it in to reality. But don't worry guys, some of us still believe you pioneered online maps, not google. But still, a sad day indeed.
However,.....the other side of the argument which makes me confused about all this...
In my humble opinion, the Streetmap website is terribly old fashioned, not very useful or user-friendly, lacks useful add-on tools, is covered in tacky adverts and simply looks like it stopped innovating somewhere back in the 1990's.
One might argue that the cost of lawyers might have been better spent on more and better development and a lot of PR to bigup their game and get noticed. Ok, Google might have still ploughed on through, but there is a good chance they or someone else would have spotted the innovations by the streetmap crew and made them a handsome offer, either as a buyout or pouring big money in to let it compete in the grown-ups game.
The streetmap team could now be heading up VirginMaps (worth £100 billion and a serious contender), or sat on a 100 foot yacht soaking up the sun. But it seems to me the path they freely chose to take was to let cobwebs grow over the website, cry in to their beers and ensure that lawyers and barristers yet again are they only ones who always win - that list used to incude the tax man, but we all know that's no longer true ;-)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
