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Comment by crucialfelix | Hacker News Reader

Ability to report inaccurate addresses without just telling the customer to go to OpenStreetMap and edit it.

We have a lot of problems with Google Maps not knowing about odd addresses like 235B Whatever St. or 113-76 XYZ street. This is perhaps because its a new construction and the address isn't in the database yet.

Town names in the Hamptons are quite contentious. What the post office knows it as is not what the locals call it, and nothing like what the real estate agents call it (but they make up their own and they lie about the locations).

But primarily you need to parse native language and messy addresses. 2 Ave, First Street, Fifth Ave, Madison Ave (same as 5th), CPW (central park west)

This is where google wins.

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It's funny you mention that, as our main business is the real estate search engine Nestoria http://www.nestoria.com We parse about listings 15M addresses in 9 different countries every day (though not the US). We work in pretty chaotic markets like India and Brazil. The world is a very diverse place, but there is one constant - agents do not feel the need to let themselves be bound by the "on the ground" truth of where a listing is.

Regarding Google, you are right, they do a good job, especially in the US. Full credit to them. The problem is the cost and usage restrictions.

Coming back to your initial point of reporting inaccuracies. What would be your preferred way to report problems? some sort of API you could automate? Would you just tell us there is a problem, or want to also tell us the solution?

If you are using OSM then it would be for you to take the change request and then perform it yourself. Don't plan to do this at scale - just do it so that your client thinks they are getting full service. They wouldn't bother to do it very often.

But the real estate agents do get frustrated when its a real mapping error.

India - in Chennai they have 2 numbers on each house : old numbering and new numbering. So addresses are shown as 17 : 34

and the rickshaw drivers have never seen a map in their lives. I hold up a google map on the phone and they stare fascinated at it for minutes, but it really has nothing to do with the reality of getting there. Many people don't even know the names of the streets and they change the names all the time. Its done by corners and what landmarks are there.

curious - how did you come up with the name nestoria ?

Regarding the name, we just did some brainstorming and a member of the team just came up with the name, nothing fancier than that. Our requirements were

- domain available - written the way it is spoken - shorter is better

in our old logo we used to use the "nest" image, but that only makes sense in some languages. Last year we went with a more modern look.

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