Wikimapia…It Needs A Wicked Amount of Work

I purchased an iphone back in August, and for the first week I had it, I got a daily kick out of going to the maps icon and using the GPS to locate myself and then watch the little blue dot move as I drove my car down the street.  Pathetic, I know, but I still do not own a GPS for my car and I am notorious for getting lost.  I was expecting Wikimapia to to capture my interest equally as google maps on my iphone.  Unfortunately, I was less than impressed.  Sure, it is cool to click on the map and zoom in a street, but I was disappointed at the lack of information on the site.  There were very few big cities specified on the maps, and the ones that were specified lacked any really earth shattering information.  I decided to view Pittsburgh since it was where I went to college (and my favorite city), and I was expecting to zoom in on my college dorm, the Museum that I worked at, and the Cathedral of Learning, the gorgeous 36 floor 1930’s building that housed the majority of my college classes.  While I was able to zoom in to street level, when I clicked on many of the landmarks, the information on wikimapia was sparse.  I was also hoping there would be additional photos, like there were when I clicked on Forbes Field, former home of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Unfortunately, many of the landmarks and buildings that I clicked on had no photos and very little information. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think wikimapia is an innovative and informative invention.  Where else can I look at France sitting on the couch?  I think the idea is genius, but it still needs a lot of work.  I am sure that as I am posting this comment, someone over at wikimapia is addressing my very concerns.  Oh, the beauty of the web!

---