Att: MikeB or PGPS Team - Answer to My Earlier Question Pls

Grumpy_Old_Man · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 8

Dear Sirs,

I posted a question to you, the night before last, under the topic "Safety Camera Fees - Details", but it does not appear that I have received any form of response from you. I am not concerned with whether or not members will need to pay for access to the PocketGPSWorld camera database in future. However, if I am to pay for it, I would like to feel confident that your database is going to remain as the superior offering in this field.

The question I raised was whether would be prepared to alter your current proposals and offer free lifetime membership to any member who is verified as being the first to report a new or removed static camera position in the future. I feel this will provide a much better incentive to ensure that as many people as possible will continue to submit camera position updates to you.

I presume that as there has been so much activity on the original thread, you may not have realised that I was expecting a response from you. Alternatively, I suppose it is possible that you may still be considering the suggestion and have not yet conveyed that information to me. I would therefore be very grateful if you could give me some form of response now. A 'Yes', 'No' or (for the time being) 'We are considering it' would suffice.

I don't feel it is really necessary for any other members to comment on this thread at this stage, although I realise that they may wish to after you have provided your response. The content of my original post is below. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Many Thanks,

Grumpy_Old_Man

Original Post Wed Jan 11, 2006 12:47 am

I am afraid I do not have time to read all of the information that surrounds this debate, but there is one issue/question I would like to raise, assuming that it has not already been done by someone else.

I am fairly new to all of this, but from the research I previously did on the web, it seems that the best camera database around is currently provided by PocketGPSWorld. I can understand why a number of long standing members have been put out by the recently proposed charges, but my personal priority (perhaps somewhat selfishly) is that if I am going to have to pay for this in future, I want to be certain that the database remains to be the best one available.

Some people have been suggesting that PocketGPSWorld stand to make a lot of money out of the new pricing model. I certainly think that it is right and proper that individuals who have contributed towards to the camera position data in the past should be offered free lifetime membership to the database. However, I do not believe that PocketGPSWorld are providing anywhere near enough incentive to ensure that people will continue contribute new or removed camera positions in future. I am basing this statement on my understanding that an individual will receive one free month's subscription for being the first to report a new or removed static camera, once the information has been verified. If I have misunderstood, or the situation has changed since I first read about it, please feel free to correct me.

Up until now, the database has been provided free to everyone (whilst inviting donations). Taking that into account, surely PocketGPSWorld could be a little more generous and offer free lifetime membership to any individual who is the first to provide a new or removed camera position in the future. This should provide a much stronger incentive for people to continue to contribute camera position information. If the number of people using the PocketGPSWorld database is as large as suggested, the comparative number of people who will be lucky enough to be the first to report a legitimate camera addition or removal will be very small. It will consequently cost PocketGPSWorld very little to offer this prize; particularly as they currently claim the accuracy of their database to be in excess of 95% and the rate of introduction of new cameras is, alledgedly, going to decrease.

As I understand it, the proposed charges are designed to cover the cost of maintenance and verification of the data that the members submit. If people are no longer inclined to continue to submit camera position data (and there is plenty of evidence of that around in various forums), then the quality of the database will plummet rapidly, and PocketGPSWorld will not have a database worth selling.

How about it PocketGPSWorld?

Darren · Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:19 pm Post subject:

An interesting proposal and one that I will discuss with the rest of the team. leave it with me and I will respond in due course.

We have only just returned from the CES show and so we're playing catch up on all the emails, threads and our day jobs so apologies for the delay!
_________________
Darren Griffin

Grumpy_Old_Man · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 8

Thanks for that. I will await the team's decision with interest.

Regards, Grumpy_Old_Man

Grumpy_Old_Man · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 06, 2006 Posts: 8

Dear Darren,

I am still waiting patiently for a response from the team. Have there been any developments you can report back to me, please?

Kind Regards

Grumpy_Old_Man

	PocketGPS
	Web