Most of its features will be rolled into Maps by March 2017.

Google's Map Maker tool was released in April 2011 as a parallel version of its official Maps app that encouraged user-submitted geographical and business changes, essentially crowdsourcing updates. Ideally, moderators would check the edits and roll them into the official versions once confirmed, though some trolling vandalism has squeaked through in the past. But it seems the dream to trust everyone with public maps is dead. Yesterday, the search giant announced that they will retire Map Maker and fold it wholly into Maps by March 2017.

Starting today, edits made in Map Maker won't be up for moderation, Google stated in a blog post. Instead, they'll be fully moved into Maps, . This begins a slow process for the search giant to transfer most, but probably not all of, the tools from Map Maker over to Maps leading up to and after its transition date next spring. What aspects won't make the jump are unclear, but restricting edits and suggestions to its Local Guides program might prevent another vulgar joke edit from shutting down the public-facing site for a few weeks.

Source:
courtesy of ENGADGET

by David Lumb

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