Perspectives

…On Ideas, Startups, Technology, Internet, India and Myself.

Monetizing maps

with 5 comments

I know there are not many readers of this blog, but I am guessing all my readers are pros of the internet advertising market. Hence this million dollar question (Hopefully).

How would you monetize a maps destination (such as Google Maps)? Forget about banner advertising, Adwords/Adsense and Campaign advertising. Many of us have heard much too much about these things anyway. If you really think ideas dont belong to the public domain (and you are probably right because we are talking about a monetization strategy here), send me a private mail.

The most ingenious and weird idea will be well regarded and treated for.

So, what do you think?

Related posts:

  1. Maps out of beta (Old news, yeah)
  2. Yahoo Maps is now Ajax
  3. Yahoo India Maps as a pincode service
  4. Maps…The shivku that might be
  5. Google does India

Written by shivku

November 2nd, 2006 at 1:00 am

Posted in Uncategorized

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5 Responses to 'Monetizing maps'

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  1. 1. Show routes that are longer than usual; Chevron, Shell, BP, Citgo might share a trickle of their profits, which in itself should be more than 10 billion.

    2. Advertise a pizza place on the way to point B from A. Pizza guys en route should bid for it. Bunch of other similar things which answer a hard question ‘What do I want to pick up if I am going to point B?’ can scale up the model.

    3. Setup deals with mobile phone service providers for to-do-senstive context advertisements. For example if my calendar/to-do has grocery shopping for the weekend and when I am around Walmart, useful discount prices might be helpful. Of course the trick is not to make it sound like spam.

    Kesava Mallela

    2 Nov 06 at 9:58 AM

  2. I believe the product will have maps and local tightly integrated, like y/g maps.

    Google maps is already highlighting the business that are paying them .

    I think adwords(pay-per-click , bidding, quality and price based ranking) will still be a good business model for maps products. Highlight the top 2-3 businesses

    Only difference being that advertisers will be bidding for a combination of location and keywords/category.

    You will need to have a good intuitive self-service interface which the mom-n-pop stores can use. The entry barriers should be minimised.

    thejas

    2 Nov 06 at 12:46 PM

  3. We have discussed Kesava’s ideas before…

    1. A HUD device: Remember reading about “Heads Up Display” in aircrafts? Think of having a HUD on your car. The HUD uses three things: 1. GPS 2. A gyroscope installed on your car 3. yoursite.com.

    From the GPS you get to know the x,y co-ordinates of your car. From the gyroscope you get the ‘direction’ where your car is heading and therefore what part of the real-world would be visible on your ‘HUD’. This information when sent to yoursite.com will let you fetch relevant market-place information from your database and display it on the HUD as an overlay.

    Real-life end-result: Your are driving past NH7, the HUD displays “Hot steaming pizza awaits you at the next right turn”.

    Now, since our HUD + gyroscope + GPS device is giving us money, the GPS device will be far cheaper than the GPS devices that are available in the market. Given the fact that the gyroscope + ‘HUD’ is an extra-nice thing that people get (something that no commercial GPS devices provide), there is a greater likelihood of people accepting this.

    There are other add-on values you can bring as well:

    1.A car being ‘parked’ in a parking lot of a specific firm will let you identify the buying behaviour of the user.

    2. A person frequently travelling through a given road can probably be ‘wooed’ by sellers on that road to buy something at a “special discount” rate. This will probably mean he will end up doing more business with the seller since he travels frequently and the seller won’t have to unnecessarily shell of ’special discount’ margins on non-frequent travellers.

    3. End points of the travel + time of the day can be used effectively in knowing around which area the customer is likely to spend time ‘buying’. Advertising can become all the more targetted.

    4. Add your idea here :)

    Suraj

    14 Nov 06 at 5:50 AM

  4. I meant to say, “We have discussed kesava’s ideas before… what do you think of this one?” but I now blame it on my poor text-manipulation skills on a stupid textarea. Its not enough if I have mozex installed, I must use it ;)

    Suraj

    14 Nov 06 at 5:53 AM

  5. This entire idea can be compared to how, in nature, living things use various strategies to make more copies of themselves. The HUD is the honey in the flower. The ads are our pollen grains :D

    Suraj

    14 Nov 06 at 5:57 AM

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