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.

I am not exactly sure when they released this new looking Yahoo India Movies, but finally , they are thinking about movies and what people do with movies.

The older version used to be service with no real value add to anyone. It had a bunch of images, videos and links and stopped at reviews and comments. With the world talking about web3.0 and mobile2.0 , it was time the site had an overhaul with layout, content and everything.

Yahoo India Movies now tries to give movie showtimes close to about twenty three cities. The show times are apparently from bookmyshow ( which is a pretty good service, btw) with ticketing option coming soon. Now, we are talking business.

The “A-Z index” was pretty interesting. It gives a list of all the movies releasing this year and in the past. I discovered a few movies that I ve never heard of before. “Coming soon” should be pretty handy too, considering Imdb does not do a very good job for Indian movies. Not sure if you are the kinds that sits and reads interviews of random celebrities. If you are, there is a section for you as well. I guess, they will also have some downloadable stuff like ringtones and wallpapers and what not. Not for me. Oh, you can watch trailers too.

Dont expect to see a radical layout change. It is a very usual Yahoo look with a banner ad on top and left with links that says “replay ad”! (Give me a break guys. ).

No feeds either. Wish I could subscribe for “coming soon” movies. Or maybe subscribe to a search criteria (say action movies) in a few theatres.

But there is still one reason why I would never go back to this site. No Search. How am I supposed to see “No smoking” trailer now? Keep clicking the links and hope that I will find it ?

Yahoo India Maps has just released driving directions for destinations inside of India. Ofcourse, locations in NA and EU work as well. There are a lot of easter eggs hiding all over. Read about it at ycoolthing. Go find your favorite directions here.

Go Anywhere!

After huge successes a couple of times at the Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, California and Yahoo, London, Hackday comes over to Bangalore. Hack Days in Yahoo are always a single day love affair with your computer. So, this one happens between October 5th 2007 from about 5 PM to October 6th 5 PM at Taj Residency.

So, If you are one of them who has registered and have an invite, Kindle the hacker head in you and come and show us your genius. You wont be disappointed. Ofcourse, we have lots of stuff happening all through the day to keep you all awake. Food is going to be yum. So are the games and talks. And we also should have some serious music from a sexy band at the end of the day. You should spot me somewhere there with an orange shirt. Pull me over and I will be glad to help you. I will also give a short talk on hacking with, well ofcourse, maps. I may just have a surprise in store for you.

And for those who did not register or did not get an invite..well, hang on here for more updates. You can always hack and post it at Yahoo! Gallery. If it is brilliant enough, someone will take notice.

Someone also managed to make a huge banner (60ft x 20ft) and put it outside our office in inner ring road, Bangalore. Unfortunately, the Wind Gods didnt like it and tore it into pieces in less than 12 hours. I managed to get some bad pics of them here:

Ourcity recently went live with Yahoo India’s maps(YIM) a little while ago (3rd april, do be precise). You can view your city’s map, click, drag, zoom and all the other things you can do with YIM. You can also search for a location and a few essential services inside the map you are viewing.

So, what do you think?

I would like YIM to stand for Yahoo! India maps. Unofficially, a couple of us assumed our mission statement to be “Go Anywhere” . So, what is so cool ? Frankly, nothing as of now. Anyways, read on.

Firstly. We cannot find your house. I will be sweetly surprised if we can. We are far away from that. But it will happen.
We dont give you driving directions just as yet. There are a few challenges there.
We do have satellite and hybrid imagery for many popular places.
We are quite comprehensive on mapping data when you consider whole of India. Our search is getting better. You still have to be very explicit and try out a few things before you get a hang of it.
The link of the map you are viewing is always on your browser’s address bar. You dont have to do anything special to get a link to the map. Just copy paste it. so, this is roughly where Yahoo is , in Bangalore.

Oh, by the way, there is no reason you should have to visit another destination to search for a non Indian address. If Yahoo! works for that address anywhere on the planet, you can have a look at it right here in India maps. Check out paris or 10, downing st, london here.

Are you used to searching for India by typing in http://wikipedia.org/wiki/India ? Try http://in.maps.yahoo.com/kolkata

You can search for Airport codes. For instance, IXB is baghdogra’s airport code. You can get to it this way.

Would you prefer Anna salai, nandanam, Chennai ? Or mount road, nandanam, madras? We love both.

There are a lot more cool things in there waiting to be figured out and a lot is in store. I hope you all have a good time finding your places and like it as we move along.