Mapping Goes Local
When you’re on the prowl for a new pizza joint, where do you go to find one?
On the prowl for a pizza joint or any other business it is more and more likely that computer users are going to go online, rather than thumbing through a fat yellow book … or Yellow Book … imagine copyrighting a name like Yellow Book … how original (not), how afraid to look to the future.
This came to mind just 2 days ago when I could hear the thumping of someone’s feet on our snow covered porch and I wondered who was out walking around in our lovely 9 degree (F) weather. It was a nice lady trudging through the neighborhood delivering this years copy of that huge book. I put the new one on the shelf next to some of the ones we have collected for business use from other cities. Taking down the old one I noticed how pristine it looked and wondered. To tell the truth? I can’t remember the last time I looked in it to find a business or a private phone number. I think it has been used a couple times in the past year, but the use is so seldom I can’t remember when.
Usually we use Google or a phone number site like Switchboard to find umbers and addresses. Or, most likely, Yahoo maps because it will display businesses very easily. The big yellow books are pretty much dead in my view. I surely don’t use them for our business, we cater to the online crowd and I am not going to pay money for a listing that only the online ignorant or deprived is going to use for their search … I feel that digital sales is enough of an educational activity, I’m not going to educate people how to log in to their AOL account.
Today’s reference article is a comparison of online mapping and directories from PC Magazine, featured by ABC News. That’s notable in itself, and surely shows how mainstream these services are becoming. Of particular note is Microsoft’s Windows Live Local, in some ways one of the services with the longest distance to go to be ready for prime time, but in other respects, already ahead of the game in image quality and support from a deep-pocket vendor.
So, what does this all have to do with GPS tracking? I think a lot. Today a great many people navigate to a desired location by planning out a route from where they think they are. Once they see their location in one of these detailed online services they suddenly come to realize that the way to Grandmas wasn’t always the way that daddy used to send them. As in car navigators and in car tracking systems become more and more prevalent it becomes more and more essential to have better maps and better overhead imagery.
If you’re a business who expects people to find you, maybe today was not the year to cancel that expensive add in the big yellow book, but stay alert, perhaps next year will.