Inside Story

When we were creating UGC searvices, we found that automatic mapping function from posted address to GoogleMaps did not work for Kyoto city region.

We tried to search addredd, "Oike-dori Ainomachi Higashi-iru Nakagyo-ku Kyoto".
This address is an address of famous IT company in Kyoto, "Hatena corporation".
Result is following.

GoogleMaps： Search Failed
Yahoo！Map： Search Failed
WindowsLive Search: Search Failed
Mapion: Search Failed
ALps Lab(Yahoo!): Search Failed
Chizu-maru(Shobun-sha): Search Failed
MapFan Web: Search Failed
Zenrin Its-mo guide: Search Failed
Goo Map: Search Failed
Livedoor Map: Search Failed
NAVITIME: Search Failed

It was impressing that none of them can search Kyoto's tradittional address. They can only search postal address, but not tradittional address.

(Note that NAVITIME and Yahoo! can search some of tradittional addresses)

So I visited Mr.Kobayashi of Geosense Inc. He is a mavin in geocoding in Japan. He said he was going to create geocoder for Kyoto's tradittional address, but not completed yet. He only had a data for streets.
I got a permission to use that data, and I calculate and create basic intersections based on that data.

It has been common sense that "You can not search Kyoto's address" in GIS, LBS, and IT industry.
So Geodosu change its common sense. Now, Kyoto's tradittional street address can be handled in IT system with Geodosu.