A long time ago, I had an interesting assignment. Go out and get every application in the world to mail enable themselves. Years later it is the simple “send to” part of the right mouse button but at the time, oh yeah, fun fun. Here comes mapping.
Mapping is going to be a big deal. All together now: duh.. Thank you. With Microsoft getting into the game and with all the noise happening, here is how I would evaluate this stuff if I were in your shoes.
First, ignore what Scoble calls “the tidal wave of negative publicity.” If you are looking as an end user and strictly as an end user, pick what works for you and be done with it. I can tell you that after almost 30 years in the biz, when two big boyz go at it, you benefit on features, services, improvements, etc. So, doesn’t matter what the anti-Microsoft people say or what the pro team says because a) it’s in ‘beta’ and b) it’s a personal decision that costs zero to try out.
From a “what’s in it for me” and making money perspective, here is what you need to look at along with some of my assumptions. Keep in mind while I used to work there, I know less then you do about the product and the future.
1. Hooks. Compare the hooks (APIs) that allow you to use this product in your application and/or service. My assumption is that over time, it’s a right mouse click item, “Map it” (where it makes sense) as well as a smart tag in a document. When I type “Dallas, Texas”, Word will give you the option to map it and cleanly put a map in the document.
When I am on a web site, looking at an address, highlight the address, right mouse and get me a map. Even better, tell me how to get there from where I am, including cheap flights, trains, busses, etc. Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself but that’s how you need to think about these products. Go way way out, figure out what “mapping” can do for you and then look at the two offerings.
Keep in mind MapPoint and other Microsoft Mapping products today, what they offer, and how this will work as part of the package. Microsoft is, generally speaking, in the plumbing business so review this as plumbing and see how it/Google works for you.
2. Value adds. Today you can blog it to just MSN Spaces but you know that will change. So, figure out what other value adds can be added to this product. An interesting service for some high school kids is to earn money for your school prom by going around town and getting all the local businesses geo-coded and then, for a nice donation, put into a DB so that everybody can get real local stuff.
Now, how do you get that data into Virtual Earth? Google Maps? Yahoo whatever? I have no idea and that’s the point. The Virtual Earth team is paying attention as is the Google machine so go ask them and figure it out. They are not, for sure, going to deploy anybody to collect local data in Homer Alaska, much to Brad Feld’s disappointment, but somebody can get that data and make a business/service out it. With whom? Figure it out as you evaluate who offers you a chance to make money.
3. Do it now. Here’s the biggest single lesson you can learn about big companies, especially Microsoft/Google/Yahoo. All of three of these fine companies are filled with eager beavers wanting to get 3.5 or better on their next reviews. All of them are on the mission of the day/month strategies. What that means is that right now, for the next chunk of time, Microsoft is going to be looking for every possible win in mapping. Every cool app, every amazing developer, everything and anything that plugs the platform, the Virtual Earth team is all over. Today. Jump on it now before 10 million other people do it and it becomes just part of the mainstream. The Virtual Earth team will always care, for sure, but there is never a better time to have influence and ride the wave then at “beta”/launch.
Finally, take a step back and think about what this means in 2009. What happens when your phone/PDA has, as a norm, GPS or location services built in along with 3G service and mapping? Should you be working with the city to have all the parking spots coded so people can find an available one? Restaurants with wait times, reservations, etc, all tied into traffic and how long it will take you to get there? Does inventory in two locations with mapping technology change the way I stock things? Sell stuff? Will it all be a fad? Privacy issues?
The point of this random blather is to avoid the noise of what’s good/bad/best today. By the standards and expectations of 5 years from now, today’s offerings will seem like black & white TV.
And boy oh boy do they (all of 'em - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) suck at Homer, Alaska. I can't get closer than 15 miles on Virtual Earth. Google puts The Homestead Restaurant in the middle of Beluga Lake (wrong). And Yahoo - well - it's just a street map (but we knew that.) Ironically, Google Earth is by far the best (it gets me to 3700 ft) but alas, it also thinks the Homestead Restaurant is in the middle of Beluga Lake - must be the same database ). I guess I should get my GPS out and start wandering around mapping the place.
Posted by: Brad Feld | July 26, 2005 at 00:07
I think that the most valuable breakthrough for mapping would be the proliferation of GPS cellphones, allowing one to "capture" (bookmark?) the location where they are standing the same way they can bookmark their location on a website or a book. Not only will it make it easy to geotag photos (which is our main interest right now), but it will make it easy to geotag pretty much anything.
Just had a great meal in a restaraunt? Press "Save Location" on your phone and tag it with "restaraunt japanese sushi rating:8", if you want you can share it with the world so anyone wandering into the restaraunt would be able to glance at previous rankings. Lost in a new town and can't find your friend? Have the friend send you his current location, save your current location and let Google or whatever give you the exact directions from where you are. All the cellphone companies have to do is implement the promised GPS phones and open them up for developers (the later is probably less likely in the short term than the former). This is going to be an exciting time to be developing map-based applications.
Posted by: Slava S | July 26, 2005 at 10:56
Vodafone's future vision
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002053.html
Posted by: Dimitar Vesselinov | July 30, 2005 at 10:19
I was really blown away by the Locate Me feature using WiFi triangulation. I'd like to see an API for that, so web applications can just detect my location (once given permission of course) and offer me the relevant information automatically. Think about what it would be like if MSN Search or Google always performed a local search by default, and not just down to the city but down to the block. How much would the retail store across the street from the coffee shop I'm sitting in pay to be the top advertiser in the search results for a product I just looked up, knowing that I'm only two minutes away?
Posted by: Joseph Kilada | August 06, 2005 at 02:53