1. With the current setup, there is no (non-hacky) way to use the text of the location on its own. This means that users do not have the ability to easily edit a style to do something interesting with the text. 2. Since the text is automatically turned into a link, users can not link it to something else of their choosing. For example, a role playing game might wish to link to a specific area of a non-earth based map, but this isn't possible, because the text is automatically linked. (Even with striptags, I don't think you'd end up being able to get what you wanted out of it.) 3. The lack of example input means that users will tend to enter content which is not designed to fit the Google Maps link. Similarly to Current Mood and Current Music, it is likely that users will treat the location as free form data, which, when linked to Google Maps, will not provide any useful results (and is much more likely to produce non-useful results, as in the case of "home"). 4. Relatively few LiveJournal users are willing to give out information which can uniquely identify them online, much less information that could uniquely identify them in meatspace. The Google map link will prove useful only in the case where a user *is* willing to identify themselves in realspace (assuming that they get past the initial ignorance of how they need to enter data to do so). For any user who is not willing to give out this information, this link will not be useful -- and I would be willing to bet money that there is a much larger percentage of users who would not be willing to than would be willing to. (Hell, I publish my address online, I publish gps logs online, but I don't want to type my address into "Current Location".)
Linking to Google Maps is at the very least stifling the ability of users to creatively include content in the current location field that might otherwise be much more useful due to the inability to include non-text data in said field, and I still maintain that based on my (admittedly non-normal, but I think relatively educated by this point) knowledge of LiveJournal users, more often than not, the link is not going to provide any useful results.
I could be wrong. I often am. I just don't think that I really am, especially with respect to number 4 in the list above, and that is the biggest blocker in my opinion, and the reason I think that the Google Map link is less useful than free text.
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Date: 2006-03-30 02:31 pm (UTC)2. Since the text is automatically turned into a link, users can not link it to something else of their choosing. For example, a role playing game might wish to link to a specific area of a non-earth based map, but this isn't possible, because the text is automatically linked. (Even with striptags, I don't think you'd end up being able to get what you wanted out of it.)
3. The lack of example input means that users will tend to enter content which is not designed to fit the Google Maps link. Similarly to Current Mood and Current Music, it is likely that users will treat the location as free form data, which, when linked to Google Maps, will not provide any useful results (and is much more likely to produce non-useful results, as in the case of "home").
4. Relatively few LiveJournal users are willing to give out information which can uniquely identify them online, much less information that could uniquely identify them in meatspace. The Google map link will prove useful only in the case where a user *is* willing to identify themselves in realspace (assuming that they get past the initial ignorance of how they need to enter data to do so). For any user who is not willing to give out this information, this link will not be useful -- and I would be willing to bet money that there is a much larger percentage of users who would not be willing to than would be willing to. (Hell, I publish my address online, I publish gps logs online, but I don't want to type my address into "Current Location".)
Linking to Google Maps is at the very least stifling the ability of users to creatively include content in the current location field that might otherwise be much more useful due to the inability to include non-text data in said field, and I still maintain that based on my (admittedly non-normal, but I think relatively educated by this point) knowledge of LiveJournal users, more often than not, the link is not going to provide any useful results.
I could be wrong. I often am. I just don't think that I really am, especially with respect to number 4 in the list above, and that is the biggest blocker in my opinion, and the reason I think that the Google Map link is less useful than free text.