Some interesting and amusing posts have shown up over the weekend that I just couldn’t go without mentioning. Ed Parsons posted an article about Nestoria’s new property site based around OSM maps. In this article Ed brings up the obvious problem that OSM’s coverage isn’t quite there yet, and goes as far as comparing it to the infamous Rabbit phone. Cue much discussion in the comments. I had been intending to write a response on here over the weekend, but didn’t get around to it. I was reminded this morning though when I saw Fake Steve Coast’s response. Absolutely hilarious (especially the carefully researched graph). I’ve really been enjoying reading the blogs of Fake Ed Parson and Fake SteveC (FSC) over the past few months so I just thought I’d say that if you’re not already reading them, you really should be.

So, obviously there’s things I want to say in response to Ed’s post, but as FSC says, he’s declared a temporary ceasefire so I won’t bring up some of the things I was thinking, I’ll just point out that Google’s coverage hasn’t always been as good as it is now:

Google Maps Coverage

(Image found here)

Also, even now, there’s places where Google’s coverage just isn’t up to scratch:

Google maps compared to OSM on the Isle of Man

Google maps compared to OSM on Malta

(I must give props to Ed for at least using recent screenshots though, some people have used very out of date screenshots in some of their presentations.)