Emad Fanous

Immersive Media announced that their deal with Google for StreetView has terminated. Once can only speculate on who terminated and why or why Google decided not to acquire them. Google has had their fleet of StreetView cars spotted on their lot and IM says they’ve sent them out. They’ve been doing their own collecting while simultaneously using IM for a while now.

Why would Google build its own fleet to begin with? The press release mentions that their content licensing deal has ended. If Google was licensing the technology, they could own the content but the press release indicates they are licensing the content so IM would own those photos. Could this mean that the licensing terms were too restrictive? When I was a SES in San Jose this year, I went to the Google Dance on the Google Campus and the engineer working on the StreetView project (he was in charge of the pictures, not the programming) said they were planning to bring those photos into the API so people could use them for their mashups. I already have noticed that a lot of features and data that exist on their site are not in the API because of other licensing issues. Could this have been one of the issues? Or is it that Google wanted to ramp up quickly and do this in such a large volume that IM could not handle that sort of demand in a short period of time…so Google would build its own fleet and, once completed and large enough, they would not need IM anymore? Well, we won’t know for sure until someone says more.

Meanwhile, at SMX Local & Mobile, Michael Jones, Chief Technologist for Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Local gave a keynote where he speaks a bit about the future direction of their products and the industry. Some take-aways include:

• Google strives to be a local searcher’s concierge (as in a concierge that helps you at a hotel or elsewhere)
• Theirs other data out there that must be mapped into local (the ones he mentions such as traffic, reviews, etc are no-brainers and they’re already happening…what is up Google’s sleeve??) and using all that info to “geographically organize the world’s information”
• Google knows they have a lot of work to do to improve their product
• Crowdsourcing is a way to collect info and improve data (perhaps a way to internalize the risk of external contracts)

(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
 

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Nokia, the largest mobile phone manufacturer has been working on trying to acquire Navteq for along time now but there are now published reports that both sides have agreed on terms.

Nokia said in August it will assemble all its Internet services under the “Ovi” brand, which means “door” in Finnish. Ovi will include Nokia Music Store, N-Gage games and Nokia Maps, and more Internet services will be added.
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Nokia’s music store, coupled with devices that can download songs directly from the service, will make the Finnish company a competitor to Apple Inc.’s iTunes.
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Last month Nokia agreed to buy Boston-based marketing company Enpocket to add technology for placing advertisements through text messages and e-mail. The mobile advertising market is dominated by Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. Global sales are estimated to rise to $11.4 billion by 2011 from $2.17 billion currently, according to Informa Telecoms & Media Group.
…
One of the new units will be called services and software as the company aims to capture more revenue outside traditional handset and network sales.

Sounds like a play to become a more services-oriented company and rely less on phone hardware sales for revenue. They will sell services and possibly provide content and monetize it with ads. With maps, a music store, and more around the corner, it seems possible that they would go after the iPhone knowing very well it would increase sales of their phones (not to mention concern over maintaining their own marketshare with the iPhone going international and rumors of Google’s GPhone popping up regularly).

What does this mean to new competitors?

…here’s the rub: Garmin last quarter was one of two 10% customers of Navteq; the other was BMW. If Nokia, through its phones, becomes a competitor to Garmin, does Garmin shift to a Navteq competitior (not good for Nokia) or does Garmin team up with Nokia/Navteq to somehow capitalize on the cell phone/navigation phenomenon?

Nokia claims it will continue to support the Navteq customers…but for how long?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
 

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Marchex, the SEO/SEM and web development company that bought openlist (formerly local-i, has
launched a bunch of local mini-sites.

Here are a couple of examples:
1. 90210.com. It is a Beverly Hills site. Marchex claims to own approximately 96% of all the US postal code domains. The only ones I have come across as available for sale recently have been postal code zipcodes which would provide little to no use to people looking to optimize for local.
2. Gary’s Auto Service in Denver, CO.

Both sites are powered by openlist data…I sure saw this one coming.

This is sort of a domain parking meets SEO meets local search set of sites.

It looks like open list will be converted as a portal to all these other
domains:

By late September, Marchex said it plans to launch a new version of a
site called Open List (http://www.openlist.com) as a consumer destination
site. It will contain an overview of links to its local network, in a bid
to drive repeat traffic.

With all of these sites, I wonder if they’re concerned about Google’s duplicate content penalty or if they think that will be tempered by all the type in traffic they get with those premium domains…they *must* have thought about it since they are in the SEO space.

(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
 

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Google is allowing you to preview mapplets.

Here is how Google descibes mapplets:

Mapplets are mini-webpages that are served inside an IFrame within the Google Maps site. You can put anything inside this mini-webpage that you can put into a normal webpage, including HTML, Javascript, and Flash. Google provides a Javascript API that gives the Mapplet access to services such as manipulating the map, fetching remote content, and storing user preferences.

When a Mapplet is enabled by the user, Google’s servers will fetch the Mapplet source code from your web server, and then serve it to the user from gmodules.com. To reduce the load on your server, gmodules.com will cache your source code for several hours.

There are lots of mapplets already available or you can make your own. Some existing ones include statistical information, trends around an area, movie times, and real estate information for a given location.

Publish your own to get people utilizing your site/data.

(1 votes, average: 1 out of 5)
 

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Google has announced their own version of A9’s Blockview (now dropped, along with a bunch of other A9 features).

Google added their twist to it by making pictures at certain points and having them be a bit offset (at an angle). So you don’t quite walk down the street as with Amazon’s A9 product but it does give you a nice perspective of the street.

The nice thing about their application is that it allows you to click and drag the picture to pan and tilt (the same way you would in those real estate virtual tours). Additionally, you can click on an area in the picture to move in that direction. Really cool stuff!

This was announced at the Where 2.0 conference.

UPDATE: Some users are voicing privacy concerns

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
 

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Microsoft’s Live Search Maps launched more 3D imagery. This time, for New York with many cities to follow, including:

• Austin, TX
• Cape Coral, FL
• Cincinnati, OH
• Indianapolis, IN
• Northampton, England
• Ottawa
• Savannah, GA
• Tampa, FL

Although there is a firefox plugin to view the maps in 3D, the firefox plugin is only available to Windows-based systems so I am unable to view and test on my Mac.

There are some pictures here and a video here

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You may have heard suggestions to name your business with your targeted keywords/categories to get better ranking for SEO purposes.

However, sometimes, no matter how much effort you put into SEO, SEM, or any other marketing methods out there, it just isn’t enough.

What do you do if you’re on a new street (even if that street has existed for 4 years already), not yet in the US Postal Service’s database (which supplies data to Navteq and other maps and navigation data suppliers)? People would love to go to your business…they just don’t know how to get there!

Terri Godwin took matters into her own hands:

“We’ve had new patients come in here completely frustrated 45 minutes after their appointment time saying, ‘I’ve been running around all over,’” Godwin said. “My first thoughts are like, well, somebody’s running these satellites. Who do you call? NAVTEQ was the name that I was given that does most of the maps.”

She filled out a request on NAVTEQ’s Web site and even attached a county map as proof. After no response, she called 5 on Your Side.

NAVTEQ spokeswoman Kelly Smith told WRAL that Pine State Street isn’t listed in the U.S. Postal Service database. That’s where they get the bulk of the information they provide to mapping companies.

Smith said they get about 80,000 requests a day for corrections or additions, so it takes time for new information to get to the public - perhaps a year or more. But she offered to try to “escalate" Godwin’s request.

That, of course doesn’t mean the navigation systems are updated since they will have to go to their dealers and get updated discs (should they have a DVD-based navigation system).

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Yahoo is providing an impressive set of APIs for developers.

The Yahoo Real estate folks show us how they use a total of 5 APIs available to the public on their Home Values page.

Launched this morning, the new page combines three APIs available right here on the Developer Network with two more from Zillow, to provide a 360-degree view of what homes are worth in the neighborhood of your choice.

Yahoo! APIs In Use:

• AJAX Maps - finds the home you’re searching for, recently sold comparables, and nearby similar homes for sale.
• Local Search - finds and displays local appraisers and customer ratings.
• Answers Question Search - finds and displays questions and answers for the query “home value.”

Zillow APIs In Use:

• GetDeepSearchResults - finds valuations, home data, sales and tax records.
• GetDeepComps - gets data on comparable homes in the area.

It’s a nice feature Yahoo has put together…but for developers out there who didn’t know these APIs were available (I know you’re out there…many of you send me emails with your questions), lets see what you can do with them!

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
 

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Google has filed a patent that outlines similar features to Google Local on a mobile device.

The UI and design (pictures available) show maps with pushpins that open up more information about the business when you press the corresponding number of the result (like clicking the pushpin on Google Local).

Some minor modifications would exist to accommodate the smaller screens in mobile devices such as possibly using circles instead of pushpins, representational markers signifying mroe results may exist off screen, etc.

Directions would be provided automatically in GPS-enabled devices and a click to talk feature would be available.

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According to techcrunch, Google will license technology to add 3D renderings in their maps (something better than what they already have).

Although Google is the market leader in mapping, to date it has lagged behind Microsoft’s Virtual Earth in terms of 3-D functionality.

The new technology will allow photo-realistic 3-D maps of cities creating the possibility that the 3-D data could be used as a basis to launch a virtual world, or licensed to existing online worlds such as Second Life.

The technology differs from the existing 3-D rendering in Google Earth; the licensed technology will allow Google to model 3-D cities using computer power alone and without the need for developer input.

An official announcement is expected at the Where 2.0 conference May 29-30.

You can see some of Microsoft’s product here.

Most sites tend to release their products in conjunction with related conferences and where 2.0 is always an interesting one for those that depend on locations (i.e. local search, maps, etc).

UPDATE: Brady provides us with more details over at O’Reilly Radar.

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