Thursday, January 11, 2007

Google Maps Direct-shuns

I have generally found Google maps to be an extremely useful tool which has helped my timely arrival at many a new destination when working on both sides of the Atlantic. However this must be the strangest route suggestion I have come across.

I was recently invited to lunch at the Wolsey restaurant in London by a business colleague. Now I have only a passing acquaintance to this area of London so after finding an address for the restaurant I Google Mapped (there's verb creation for you) it and knowing it was somewhere near the Ritz I put that in as a Landmark to help orient myself when I break the surface at Green Park after a subterranean journey.

It turns out that the two places are practically opposite each other, but look at the route Google maps recommends from one to the other - maybe it is assuming I need to work up an appetite.

Now it feels real!

Its weird being back in start-up mode again - last time I was in the position was in 1999 when money was secured before the idea was fleshed out!

Things are different now, start-up costs are cheaper (well for the Internet tech anyway), the world is more aware of the Internet and domestic broadband is the norm rather than wishful thinking.
The whole world feels very different.

But what really makes me feel like I'm a free-wheeling tech entrepreneur is the very same thing that reminds me how much the environment has changed and that is the fact that my 'office' is now split between my cubby hole at home and the rather fine Coffee Evolution with its free WiFi - which is where this very post is coming from!