Google Maps vs. Apple Maps vs. Waze

Several weeks ago I got stuck at the bottom of Little Cottonwood Canyon in Sandy, Utah waiting to get up to Alta ski resort on a snowy Saturday morning. On most days the traffic to get to the ski resort is fairly mild. Throw in a snowstorm the night before and a lot more people will try to go skiing because of the fresh powder. If there is too much snow then avalanches become a problem and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) has to ensure that the road is safe for others before letting anyone up the canyon. This is the situation my wife, son, and I found ourselves in.

My son decided to run a very simple test: which smartphone application provides the most accurate estimation on when you will arrive at your destination? We had 3 smartphones in the car and so one checked Google Maps, another Apple Maps, and the last one Waze. Pick the one you think provided the most correct answer and then continue reading. The answer may surprise you.

Having been stuck in a similar situation before, we all had a rough idea of how long it would take us to get up to the ski resort and so my son rattled off the time from Google Maps: 51 minutes. Normally it would only take us 10 minutes from where we were at the time. Next he checked Apple Maps and it said 21 minutes. That was the answer we wanted to hear but we knew it was too optimistic. Finally he checked Waze and got a 41 minute time, but with a caveat. Waze redirected our route and used some side streets to get us the middle time. We did not want to change our route and stuck to our intended path up the canyon.

We got to the bottleneck of traffic and saw how Waze would have routed us around it. We also saw that had we followed the new path, we would have been redirected and not been allowed up the canyon. Police were standing in the middle of the intersection and not allowing cars from the alternate path to proceed through the intersection towards the ski resort. This is an anomaly and nothing in Waze would have know about the redirection.

We continued up the canyon at a slow pace because of all the cars wanting to go skiing. Ultimately Google Maps gave us the most correct number as it took us 49 minutes from the point we checked all 3 apps for estimated travel times.

Is this proof that Google Maps is better than Waze and Apple Maps? No, it is just one case. Normally I would have guessed that Waze would do a better job as that is what I have been told. Ultimately each trip can be different and affected by a number of variables. For this trip, Google Maps performed better than the others.

My Bear Claw Yurt Video

A week and a half ago I went on a ski mountaineering trip with my two sons and a friend. We hiked into the Bear Claw yurt and spent the night. The next morning we woke up, hiked up a couple of mountains, and skied down them before returning to our car. I thought the entire experience would make a pretty good video and so I took some footage with one of my new GoPro knock-offs. I'll let you be the judge of the video but I think it came out pretty well.

This represents a different way of creating videos as I had the video completed and up for viewing on YouTube in about 10 days. We left on Thursday afternoon and I uploaded the completed product the following Saturday. When I started the trip with my sons, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to capture and just pulled out my camera every time I thought something interesting happened. When we got home, I reviewed the video and created a simple script describing the trip.

Every time I go to create a video, I feel like I have to relearn a number of the settings for the software I use to create the finished product. This time I took copious notes so it will be easier the next time. I also only created my last video a few months ago and so a lot of what I did was still fresh in my mind. I think the sound quality on this one came out much better than previous ones. There is still a bit of work to do though.

I am trying to create these videos as a method of improving my video creation skills. If you have any constructive comments, please feel free to let me know.

YouTube Traffic vs. Blogger Traffic

My little experiment with sharing a blog article on LinkedIn has spurred a number of questions. I talked with a couple of my buddies about it at lunch today and they provided some interesting insight. I thought you might find it interesting as well.

I wondered aloud with them as to why people would click from LinkedIn to my blog but not continue on to see any of my YouTube videos. One of them suggested that people will often keep up-to-date on their social media feeds via smartphones. Smartphones lend themselves to viewing blogs much more easily than to videos. You can read a blog on the train or quietly at your desk. Watching videos usually requires some sort of sound output and that can cut down on people's willingness to watch.

Both blogspot.com and YouTube are owned by Google and come with extensive analytics. I thought I would go through and see if my buddy's hypothesis is true. To do that I looked at the platform people use to view the content I have created. Sure enough, the overwhelming platform that people use to view my YouTube videos is the computer. My blog entry I promoted on LinkedIn is most often viewed on smartphones.

This has me rethinking my video content. There are a number of spectacular videos that don't need narration. My favorite ski videos don't have someone talking over breathtaking powder montages. They may have some pumped-up music synchronized with the movements of the skier. Perhaps I need to cut down on the amount of narration I have in my videos.

Playing with the analytics definitely gives me something to think about and ideas to try in my next videos. I have two that I am working on now and make adjustments accordingly. If you have any ideas or comments, please let me know. I am trying to get better at what I do and help from the outside is always welcome.