Yahoo Maps powered by Ovi Maps. And more!

Some of you probably have heard about this news: Nokia and Yahoo! have an agreement to work on they really’re really good at. According to the press release:

Today, Yahoo! and Nokia announced a worldwide strategic alliance to extend the reach of their industry leading online services and offer people rich experiences that keep them connected to their world and the world around them.
Building on more than five years of collaboration, Nokia and Yahoo! ® will leverage each others’ strengths in e-mail, instant messaging and maps and navigation services, to provide consumers with access to world-class experiences on both PC and mobile devices.

You can also find the press release at Yahoo! Yodel Anecdotal. So, what does it mean for you? Probably… nothing. But, for me it means something. Let me tell you why.

I use Flickr — and I’m really enjoying it. Sometime, I take advantage of its geo-location feature. I can put my photos into map. You can do it manually, or automatically using geo-location meta data captured from your mobile device. I did it using my mobile device. Flickr photos with geo-location information will be integrated with Yahoo! Map. You can see my Flickr map page to see it in action. Is it good? Yes, but not that good. Why?

  • When I had my photos with location information, they’re not placed at the correct information. So, I have to edit their location in the map.
  • Yahoo! Map does not have much details about my hometown, Jogjakarta. Especially, when it comes to street names. For example, my photo taken in Malioboro Street, it’s detected as it was taken in other area, and it’s not even close.
  • I remembered that I have put my photos into correct location. But for some reasons — I don’t know why — the location was changed. I hope I’m wrong with this. The zoom effect or something, I don’t know.

With the new partnership I mention above, I hope I can see improvements. Ovi Maps has a great database of location, and it works really well. I know, sometime it has some mistakes on the street naming, but… still, it’s a great tool.