Thanksgiving
There is a new fad spreading (or perhaps just flaring up again) in certain literary circles: writing a complete story in six words. I believe the “original” was the result of a bet with Ernest Hemingway, who won the bet with these six words:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
I can’t beat that, but I was reminded of the six-word challenge today. I don’t have a story but rather a thanksgiving. I was sitting in the back of a cab, on the way back to my hotel, traveling alone in a strange city. As the cab turned the corner, I realized that I might not be there if not for Google Maps.
A long time ago, I maintained a collection of printed maps in my car for home town, and all the cities I visited for business or pleasure, and all the states in between. And I cursed having to go somewhere new, because it meant I had to buy a new map and find a place to carry it.
Years later I became a dues-paying member of Triple-A, and I fell in love with their TripFinder service. You called them up, told them where you needed to go, and they would mail you maps and directions. Later they added fax support, and later still they set up kiosks in their offices where you could print your maps on the spot. But it was still geared towards interstate trips, not finding your way around town. And because of the lag time (or the office hours), you had to be sure to plan well in advance.
Then came Mapquest and other “first generation” online mapping services, in the late 90s. In the beginning, they wouldn’t give you directions to places within a certain distance — the horseless carriage to AAA’s TripFinder. Eventually Mapquest relaxed that restriction, but exploring maps was still slow, and entering addresses was still clunky, and getting directions required clicking to another page and starting over. And in the end it was usually easier just to look up a phone number and get directions from a human being.
And then came Google Maps. It revolutionized online mapping with its easily scrollable maps and its intelligent address parsing and its streamlined interface. And of course, it offered local directions from anywhere to anywhere, even if it turned out to be right around the corner. And it made exploring unknown places so simple and so intuitive that there was no excuse not to use it.
I’ve been a programmer for 23 years, and I know you don’t make “simple” by accident.
Sometimes the places you need to go don’t have phone numbers, and sometimes they turn out to be right around the corner, and sometimes you don’t even know you need to go there until it’s almost too late. So I give thanks to Google Maps and all the people behind it, and here are my six words:
You helped me find a meeting.