Google and Microsoft Are Mapping Favelas So They Can Sell Things There

The twisting pavement and dizzying density of Brazil ’s favelas might dissuade most foreigner from navigate these crowded internal - city neighborhoods , which informally put up about 1.5 million of the nation ’s resident . Yet in the last few months , both Google and Microsoft have both been see map their narrow street and scandal paths .

harmonize to theWall Street Journal , both companies have late launched conjunctive effort to accurately map these sprawling communities . But before you think this is some kind of goodwill crusade to present the mass of this Earth more fairly , consider this fact that Google secrete , per the Journal : Although the areas had almost uniformly been seen as places of extreme poverty , now 85 percent of favela residents have roving phones .

Google and Microsoft want to map out these area so they can figure out how to market to the people who live there . Knowing exactly where mass live allow Google to betray specific , geotargeted advertising . Local businesses can then be mapped , which means their owners can be tapped to market their help online . And there will also now be a way to track buying habits and net usage with flake more geographic preciseness .

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Vidigal , a favela in Rio de Janeiro , now is defend on Google Maps , although no Street View yet .

Before the tech giants decided to capitalise on Brazil ’s favelas , there had been other , less commercialized efforts to right map out these vicinity , which are inform the Microsoft and Google invasion . A non-profit-making calledRedes da Marefought to get the favela of Mare right represented on Rio de Janerio maps , with street names , speech , and vigor codes . Microsoft is working with this group to make certain their maps equal the path locals think of their biotic community , a smart move . Google meanwhile is recruit local Tennessean using its MapMaker app to snap and plot businesses on its map . Some streets and passageways do n’t have official epithet , so meetings have been admit so resident can vote to name them .

As you could see from the Google Maps lesson above , the blanks in Vidigal , Rio de Janeiro are set out to be filled in with some street names and even footer walkways connecting unlike quoin of the residential area . give the ever - change nature of a favela — with no developing codes , citizenry could easy reroute a street or take out a building at their impulse — keeping these neighborhoods up - to - date will surely keep mapmakers on their toe . But if it think of reaching a growing potential audience , I ’m sure they ’ll figure out how to make it work . [ WSJ ]

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