And please give a warm welcome to....the Map Content Partner Help Center

Earlier this year, we discussed how we've been taking steps to make it easier for government agencies and other organizations to add their authoritative mapping data to Google Maps and Google Earth. Since then, we've been working to expand our programs for map content partners so we can welcome additional types of mapping data. In support of these programs, and in response to feedback received during our participation earlier this year in a conference of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), we've developed a help center just for organizations who contribute mapping data to Google.

Our goal in launching the Map Content Partner Help Center is to be as transparent as possible about the partnership and content licensing process, the types of map content we welcome, the data formats we're able to accept, and other questions we frequently hear. Through the help center, we also provide a few ways to contact our Map Content Partnerships team, whether you want to tell us about data you'd like to add to Google services or want to raise a specific question or issue related to our partnership.

Like all good online help services, we hope to keep this help center up-to-date to address the many -- and sometimes out of left-field -- questions you send our way about partnering with Google. It's not that we don't like to interact with our partners and field questions personally. It's the fact that we're developing these partnerships globally, there are only so many of us in our U.S.-based Map Content Partnerships Team, and we're only fluent in three languages (four if you count Canadian). So, in rolling out this help center, we are better able to communicate with organizations the world over -- currently in English, and soon in other languages, eh? 

Posted by Dylan Lorimer, Content Partnerships

Monday, September 28, 2009 at 10:18 AM