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User-Generated Content Will Bring Greater Depth to Digital Maps and Points of Interest, Says ABI Research

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 December 2007, 12:00 CST

The acquisition of NAVTEQ by Nokia and the bidding war between Garmin and TomTom for control of Tele Atlas have shown how important digital maps have become in the navigation and location value chain. However, with the expected growth of handset-based pedestrian navigation and location based services, traditional map production technologies will no longer be able to generate and update the exponentially growing volume of required map details. The case for user-generated content for POIs is even stronger, as they are even more dynamic in nature. By 2012 a large part of all map and POI content will be generated by more than 50 million active members of user communities.

"TomTom Map Share is the first commercial implementation of user-generated map content technology directly on a Personal Navigation Device," says ABI Research principal analyst Dominique Bonte. "Map corrections or POI additions can be input on the device on the fly and instantly uploaded and shared with the rest of the TomTom Map Share community. AND (Automotive Navigation Data) has recently made available an online digital map which can be modified by all users based on Web 2.0 technology, allowing AND to produce maps more quickly and at a lower cost."

While branded content sharing initiatives are aimed at keeping commercial maps up-to-date at low cost, completely open and standardized community projects will create digital maps and POI-databases from scratch. The OpenStreetMap project has already achieved high levels of coverage in the Netherlands, UK and Germany. Several open POI-community projects such as GPS-Waypoints, TellmeWhere and GyPSii have recently been launched, some of which have attracted important venture capital funding. Their main revenue source is expected to be based on advertising, and opportunities may still exist to sell packaged content to navigation vendors.

Geocontent will become an important new dimension of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, creating synergies with Geoweb and POI-community related initiatives. Ultimately all mobile devices will become connected, accessing web-based geocontent from a variety of sources.

"User-Generated Digital Maps and POIs" (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/market_research/UGMP), a new study from ABI Research, examines the major user-generated location content features, players, trends, drivers and barriers. The report also contains forecasts for the number of community-ready navigation devices and the number of active users involved in user-generated content initiatives. It forms part of the Automotive Infotainment (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/ Automotive_Infotainment_Research_Service) and Location Aware Services (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Location_Aware_Services) Research Services.

ABI Research is a leading market research firm focused on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets. Utilizing a unique blend of market intelligence, primary research, and expert assessment from its worldwide team of industry analysts, ABI Research assists hundreds of clients each year with their strategic growth initiatives. For information, visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516.624.2500.

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Source: Business Wire

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