Testing Embedded Tracks

Please excuse another brief departure from my Hawaiian trip series, to compare some embedded geo-sharing solutions. I am, after all, a sucker for maps & GPS data.

I’m trying out three different website services which allow you to share your GPS tracks with other users. One is MotionBased, which is based on Garmin maps since they’re a Garmin subsidiary. The other two are EveryTrail and myGeoDiary. Both use Google maps and also integrate geotagged images.

I found it interesting that all three sites are based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, with EveryTrail and myGeoDiary both being based not far from me, in Palo Alto. As far as I can tell, MotionBased has been around the longest of the three by far, dating back to the far distant past of 2003. Both EveryTrail and myGeoDiary go back to the first half of 2008, although both probably began ramping up earlier.

This post contains my first impression, rather than an exhaustive comparison of all three sites. I’m concentrating on the embedded map features, although I will briefly touch on some of the related features.

All three sites provided me with some frustrations, but overall were relatively straightforward. MotionBased may be the least user-friendly of the three, yet also with perhaps the fewest features. EveryTrail was relatively smooth. It completely failed to geotag my image, and in the end I could only manage to get it tagged approximately correctly, based on where myGeoDiary had placed it. While myGeoDiary managed to geotag the image perfectly, there were numerous user interface issues to battle along the way. The site seemed the least mature of the trio, and I think that it’s the least well known as well.

Copies of all three embedded track maps (were) below.

MotionBased offers the ability to custom size and select the default map type, which is great – if you can get things done in the right order, and I had to fight their system to do that. There’s no image support that I saw. I like the look of EveryTrail’s displayed map the best. myGeoDiary seems to be the underdog in this competition. They offered the fewest embedding options, and the fewest map options. Inexplicably, they were also the only map that didn’t include any direct link to the shared track on their site. They do provide two links, but both of those point to their homepage.

I used the same unedited GPX file of my weekend hike at Blair Ranch for all three, and the same image file to the two sites that support images.

In terms of performance, my brief testing gave these results: the MotionBased map loaded first every time for me, sometimes by a margin of several seconds. The maps from EveryTrail and  myGeoDiary traded second place honors, and were usually very close.

(Embedded maps outdated and removed)

In terms of date accuracy, there was quite a lot of variation in terms of how each dealt with my track data. All disagreed on the elevation gain, and to a horrifying degree. Two of three agreed on the length of the track at least. I was a little shocked that MotionBased reported a different track length not only from the two others, but also different than Garmin’s own MapSource software (and the AnalyzeTrack app as well.)

I also had concerns about what exactly some were reporting, since they weren’t always clear, and again often contradicted other data. All did seem to display the track properly on their maps.

All three provide useful functionality, but at this point I have to give the nod to EveryTrail. I’m new to all three so I may very well be making some noob mistakes on any or all of them.

That pretty much sums up my first impressions. I could go into more detail but I don’t want anyone to actually die of boredom while reading this, assuming that you haven’t yet done so. I’ll happily explore other geo-sharing options if anyone has any to suggest. Comments, thoughts, and experiences would be welcome.