Just curious: what makes something a POI and therefore searchable?

 

Do businesses pay to have their business searchable? Sort of like a Yellow Pages but on the GPS? Where does a GPS draw content from for things like
- department stores,
- Public parks,
- churches,
- some doctors offices

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Emma

simply because someone IS interested. . . .

Hawkthree wrote:

Do businesses pay to have their business searchable? Sort of like a Yellow Pages but on the GPS? Where does a GPS draw content from for things like
- department stores,
- Public parks,
- churches,
- some doctors offices

is how something becomes a "POI". The fine content here at POI Factory is put together and shared by our wonderful users themselves. The POIs you find on your gps will usually be loaded by the manufacturer so the content will vary but they're trying to be comprehensive and cover most things they think you'll find useful. After that, it's up to you to add custom POIs for the stuff you enjoy doing or places you like to shop, etc.

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Winston Churchill said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities.”

I'm more interested in how

I'm more interested in how Garmin selects POIs. I'm kind of interested in the things that do not show. It made me wonder if business pay to be added.

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Emma

I don't think they select

Hawkthree wrote:

I'm more interested in how Garmin selects POIs. I'm kind of interested in the things that do not show. It made me wonder if business pay to be added.

I don't think Garmin selects as much as strips out businesses. The amount of space for their POI is limited and my understanding is they decide to include just a sampling of locations from lists provided by outside sources in each of the categories within a given area. How large an area is something probably only Garmin could answer which is why they may have 25 department stores, but the nearest listing for the store you want isn't one that's close.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

I wonder why?

Hawkthree wrote:

Where does a GPS draw content from for things like
- department stores,
- Public parks,
- churches,
- some doctors offices

Aledo IL is the county seat. Nearest police station appears to be 20 miles away. Our county court house, city hall & the fire station are listed, but not the police station or sheriff's office...All the churches are listed too.

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1490LMT 1450LMT 295w

Yes, and I don't know :-)

Hawkthree wrote:

Do businesses pay to have their business searchable? Sort of like a Yellow Pages but on the GPS? Where does a GPS draw content from for things like
- department stores,
- Public parks,
- churches,
- some doctors offices

Yes, Navteq does have some sort of subscription method for businesses to use for submitting poi info, and some 'business sets' seem better than others.
re- http://navteqmedia.com/mobile/case-studies/best-western

But I really don't know where Garmin/Navteq get their various community type POI's. I'd like to know because in my area the Post Office info is WAY out of date on the 2011.3 map surprised

Navteq also has a Map Reporter site for corrections, but they don't seem to show up on Garmin units for years.
http://mapreporter.navteq.com/dur-web-external/secured/submi...

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It's about the Line- If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended.

Navteqmedia article quite interesting

That article was pretty interesting.

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Emma

Sometimes You May Need To Adjust Your Search Area

Here in the metro area of a major city, we have suburban areas outside of the major city's limits that are incorporated (smaller) cities and others that are named but unincorporated. With few exceptions, these various areas all appear in the list of cities the GPS offers when you begin to enter a name.

It took awhile to discover that many community and business POIs as well as certain street addresses "near my current location" weren't actually missing--I just needed to start my search from the bigger city or nearby community as the reference.

Finding no pattern to the hits and misses, I have to remember to search another area or two if I don't succeed the first time.

Re:Sometimes You May Need To Adjust Your Search Area

I do live in a large metro area and finally stumbled across cities. It was really useful when I discovered I could spell the city rather than scroll through a list of 50 or so. There's one restaurant chain that doesn't show up at all. I was trying to drive to it and had to find it myself. As I was parked next to it, I tried spelling its name. I tried going into the food. The GPS identified about 30 places near me, but not the restaurant I was parked next to. I like their breakfast and coffee, so there are 3 of them near my work locations that I use. None of them are on the GPS.

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Emma

Does POI-Factory have them

Hawkthree wrote:

I like their breakfast and coffee, so there are 3 of them near my work locations that I use. None of them are on the GPS.

I believe that you are going to have to get used to the fact that your GPS will not have many of the places that you like to frequent. Further, it is unlikely that "updates' to your unit will be adding them.

Have you looked to see if POI-Factory has the restaurant chain? If so, then it will be easy for you to add that set of POIs to your unit.

You may want to look at some of the beginner's exercises to get started. You can find them by going here
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6654

I particularly encourage you to backup your unit.

paid content

Hawkthree wrote:

I'm more interested in how Garmin selects POIs. I'm kind of interested in the things that do not show. It made me wonder if business pay to be added.

I've had Garmin support tell me that they do charge for some POIs. The tech just offered it, I didn't even ask, although we were discussing the patchy POI content. That makes a lot of the other POI content seem even stranger, since there are a lot of bad POI locations in the database that no one would ever pay for.

Unfortunately, Garmin's POIs . . .

. . .often leave a LOT to be desired--not only for ones that are missing, but for ones that are just plain wrong, like one early evening when I needed a Walmart while traveling. After passing it up (I thought) and doubling back at the next Interstate exit a couple of miles ahead, U-Turning under the Interstate overpass at the service road's dead end, and finally getting the order to Turn Right, it didn't take long to figure out why I didn't see it on the 1st pass--I was in front of a big dark empty meadow.

Since then, I've had many similar observances for several other common POIs, which is why POI Factory turns out to be such a great resource.

Alternatively, with your Garmin connected to your PC, use sites like Google Maps to find places you want, then send the coordinates to your GPS via the site's provided interface.

Hawkthree wrote:

I do live in a large metro area and finally stumbled across cities. It was really useful when I discovered I could spell the city rather than scroll through a list of 50 or so. There's one restaurant chain that doesn't show up at all. I was trying to drive to it and had to find it myself. As I was parked next to it, I tried spelling its name. I tried going into the food. The GPS identified about 30 places near me, but not the restaurant I was parked next to. I like their breakfast and coffee, so there are 3 of them near my work locations that I use. None of them are on the GPS.

Nope

Hawkthree wrote:

I'm more interested in how Garmin selects POIs. I'm kind of interested in the things that do not show. It made me wonder if business pay to be added.

I can tell you that my retired neighbor down the street still shows up as Bob's Plumbing and he certainly never paid anybody. I used to use a bogus business name when I did side work for a few people. I never actually had a business but it somehow became a known entity because it shows up on my GPS. VERY weird. I don't know how they get business names but I can definitely tell you there are businesses listed that no longer exist and even some that never actually existed and the people involved didn't pay anybody to be included and were, in fact, a bit mind boggled to find that they show up on the GPS.

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GPSMAP 76CSx - nüvi 760 - nüvi 200 - GPSMAP 78S