Perspectives

Be it Wikimapia or keyhole or any one of those innumerable sites that have geographic information, the community has painstakingly marked those bus stops and milk booths and restaurants and even houses. Probably for personal satisfaction. Or maybe to help those lost and stranded. With a billion helpful minds behind, India suddenly seems too small. And now it is payback time.

Starting today, Yahoo! India Maps will cut across the web so that the best of location intelligence is available to you behind one text box at http://in.maps.yahoo.com. Try “Mumbai cst” or “metro, Delhi” or “garuda mall, Bangalore” and you will know what we are talking about. Looking for ATMs near Forum mall? Try “ATMs near forum mall, Bangalore”. Or maybe you are on that Motorbike drive across Chennai, “Shell petrol pumps in Chennai” will come in handy. These are locations that we have captured from various locations around the internet, wherever they exist.

And it does not stop with just that. Combine the mighty power of users with our unique Indian driving directions and suddenly, it seems like you may never be required to pull over and ask the pan-wallah for directions ever again. Yes, we know that many roads don’t have names and when they do, they probably don’t have sign boards indicating them. So, We thought landmarks and turns in your route instruction will help make it easier for you. Now, we have also added information about localities, towns, villages and cities along your route so that you know what you are leaving behind and what you are entering when you are on your journey.

Print it out or Send yourself an SMS and get going, because, getting lost is not so easy now.

- Says Yahoo! India Maps.

This is a long pending post.

Search? Making money out of Search? yeah ok. We have a 200 billion dollar company doing that right. Social networking? Facebook is trying out a few things and they are likely to crack it sooner than anybody else.

Now making money out of Maps? Now that is a complicated problem. In my opinion, nobody has quite solved this. Yahoo and Mapquest stick to what are best at. Banner advertising. But with the advent of Mashable maps (Ajaxified maps), you just have one page to do all you want. Real estate is prime and crunching a banner ad there ends up being ugly. I have always disliked the ad at the bottom left corner of Yahoo Maps.

Now, Google has tried a few things too. They have tried to sneak in their adwords in. But then again, 75% of the page is maps and there is only so much you can do with the right pane which is already so full of local results and driving directions instruction set and what not. Plus, it hardly and rarely makes use of the biggest context available. “Geography”. In other words, “location”.

Yahoo then tried the branding with the “See these business locations on the map” bottom bar. Now it is quite static with no intelligence. And like I argued earlier, and only slightly makes use of the fact there is a location context. Plus, It suits only those business that have a wide (nation wide) presence. In other words, businesses that are chains. It simply refuses to cater to the needs of the long tail.

Also, Maps is a very unique service. Most online services and properties tries to keep the person online. It works by the charm of referrals. But maps works the other way around. The user actually wants to get offline. He wants to get off the internet and get going somewhere. Most Ad models and networks are not best suited for this. They all work in a “Click here to go to the site” way when I want to get off my chair.

A real long time ago ( a year or two ago) Google was trying to sneak in a few sponsored listings as markers on the map. In a given map view, you will find (different looking) markers strewn all over the place. Once clicked, it will tell you about a restaurant or a book store with the phone number etc. Somehow, that has disappeared. Mostly because they didnt find enough interest in the advertising community.

Most recently, I came across Lat49 which is trying to do the same thing. They have tied up with a bunch of map services and hacks (on top of Gmaps and Yahoo maps etc). As an advertiser, you gotta go and buy rights for an area (location context) and place your ad. Everytime anyone see that particular area on any of those Mapping partners, your ad will be displayed.

I think this is the way it needs to proceed. Because fundamentally, the context is location. Not keywords, not your IP, Not the referral page. It is like you are driving to that coffee shop you love the most, but the book store exists on the way. Whether you like it or not. From such a perspective, these ads stop looking like ads anymore. Right?

Now the real challenge is to generate interest in those physical businesses. They need to educated that it is possible to promote their physical store just as well and easy as their online store. It is even possible to advertise on the internet even if you are not online. And that Advertising on Maps is the way to go about it.

What do you think?

It is crazy how many unsolicited “New year Wishes” mail I have in my inbox. Give up your generosities and philanthropy and get some work done guys. I am talking to cleartrip and IRCTC and bigadda and minglebox and indiaproperty and even some Mutual fund guys like Birla sun life and reliance.

My inbox and time is a little more precious than you think.

This is a big surprise for me. The 2007 zeitgeist list for India (Fast rising queries) has just one English word which is not already a Google product in the top five:

01. Orkut
02. YouTube
03. Gmail
04. Map
05. Google

And what it is? “Map”!? So, what does this tell you? Maybe there is a big market for “Maps” and my gut feel has been wrong all along..hmm..But I still cant believe it is map. Not facebook. not iphone. Not javascript. But map. Not “Google maps”, Not “Yahoo Maps”, but “Map”. Interesting.

If you are curious..the six to ten are these. Not sure how zapak managed to jump in there:

06. Indian Railways
07. Yahoo Mail
08. Technology
09. Yahoo
10. Zapak

So, You may have heard about the first result in youtube for the search query “India”. It is called “India driving”, a candid potrait on what happens on Indian roads. One of my friends has even come to a conclusion that Indians dont have the disciplined driving gene in us. Even if you forget the bad PR that such a video could do to the country ( and it’s tourism), it is still necessary that we figure out a way to fix this problem just so that we reach our homes safely.

A little while ago, Siddharth was talking to me about traffic violations and an idea he had about creating a wall of shame and possibly also enable people to say sorry. And then he stumbled upon Traffic Violators.

Although the idea is novel and I have to congratulate Abhishek Kant for the initiative, the website needs to come a long way before it can really make a change.

For the most part, the people who report the violation probably want to remain anonymous. As much as I want better driving conditions, I would rather not get fire from someone else. I dont understand why I have to create a login to report a violation. If you are going to trace me back, I guess, I would not even report in the first place. Also, Login/Register is a big fallout. When it comes to “citizen initiatives” you have to make it as easy and compelling as possible.

There are about four violations as of now in a corner of the page. If the site is about violations, should that occupy center stage? Also, it is unclear what happens once I report. Do you give an opportunity for the owner to come back and say sorry? What about “cabs” driven by employed people? Most of the “travels” vehicles have a “Do I drive bad” sticker stuck somewhere on the car. Shouldnt it be possible to report that too? Other related information such as what is the kind of vehicle and what is the kind of violation is worth reporting as well. How will the information get disseminated? The more places you are able to see it, the better. I am probably talking about an API or a widget.

Anyways, Cheers! to Abhishek and all others involved and drive safe. Please dont Honk.

And you wont even notice it. Well, I guess, that was the idea. It is magical how they all have managed to pull this one through. I mean, everything that worked in Flex works exactly the same way in JS? Makes us wanna think, that they initially used flash for the wrong thing, or they had other feature rich ideas initially which they never managed to roll out.

But, I think this is a good way forward. It takes a lot less time to load for sure. ( Still not very ideal, takes about 8 Secs from a good broadband in India). It will begin to work on those Airport Computers that dont have flash installed. The Yahoo Maps Ajax API will start to get some of these benefits. It will begin to grow faster and cooler.

But having said all of that, It still has some distance to cover before I become it’s fan. Starting from reducing the number of text boxes to removing unnecessary links like “save to my web”.

Kudos to the technical for achieving something close to a marvel. Writing this kind of Javascript and CSS is a painstaking effort for sure.

Google Local India Sticker
Originally uploaded by shivku.

I was at a watch repair shop at BDA, Complex in Bangalore and I was surprised to see a Google marker stuck on one of the side walls of the small shop. On Closer analysis, It revealed itself as a “Google India Local Maps” sticker that Google possibly has shipped it over to these guys.

So, did the shop owner marked himself on the map (Using My maps) and got the sticker shipped? Very unlikely. I dont think he has used email, let alone maps online. I also tried searching for “Clock repair” and could not find anything useful. Infact, I could not find “BDA complex” in Koramangala, Let alone the “clock work shop” inside it.

So, that just means someone came over and distributed these stickers? That is cheap.

Having said that, the idea rocks. First, They have gone really local. This is as random a shop as it can get. Not the kinds you will find even on yellow pages. Second, this is free physical contextual advertising. Not many people are online in India yet, and not many non-internet ( Newspapers or TV) ads are contextual. Now, things in the physical world that you can relate to on the internet which is (also) contextual, well..that is a killer combo. Precisely what made me come back home and search for “clock works” near my house in Google maps.

So, You all have heard about this wonderful little company called Mapunity trying to take on the daring problem of Traffic information services which nobody thought was possible to solve in India? If you havent, visit, their Bangalore, Hyderabad and recently, Chennai Traffic information services. Chennai traffic is still in Beta and was released sometime last week. If you are from Chennai and if you find something glaringly wrong (with respect to traffic, that is), make sure you let the guys know.

BTIS has also put out a little mashup with Yahoo India Maps, for Bangalore. If you ever thought the basic maps of BTIS wasnt enough, then you know where to go.

TWO BILLIONTH
Originally uploaded by yukesmooks.

The two billionth photo on Flickr. I am sure someone is asking about this in some quiz somewhere.

So, the online maps battle is not being fought just between Google and Mapquest. We also have Ask Maps on the hood. (along with MSN and yahoo! and a bunch of others). It surely does not win over the other map services yet, but they seem to be the only ones so far to have “Walking directions“. Although (what they have implemented is) no “rocket science” technology wise, We still have to cheer them for first to market.

Walking directions are significantly different from (GMaps’s) “Avoid highways”, when properly implemented.

• Walking doesn’t (Infact, shouldnt) need to take care of One ways.
• Walking should strictly be the shortest. It needs to avoid every other consideration, how wide the road is, speed limits, How many lanes etc.
• It needs to take care of which side of the road to walk and Zebra/pedestrian crossings and subways. I dont think zebra crossings is an easily available information and don’t think Ask considers it. For instance, that is not how I cross over from Yahoo’s one building to another.
• What about (underground) subways? What if the subways have many exits? What about stairs along bridges and ramps? I can just climb up the stairs right? Again, Lack of data.
• How can you possibly walk 115 miles? I mean, not unless you are Forrest Gump mindlessly running around. Features need to make (human) sense.

This is a spectacular feature that has been in my mind for a long time. It is nice to see Ask making it happen, but needs to improve. This along with “Cycling” and “public transportation” and a combination of the three should be fantastic.

What do you think?