[nabs-l] Finding Your Way Indoors

[Joe Orozco]

For iPhone and Android enthusiasts.  If we could reach out to the developers
to make sure these apps talk, we'd be in business.--Joe

Finding Your Way Through the Mall or the Airport, With a Cellphone Map
 
Laura Pedrick for The New York Times
FastMall offers a floor plan and can search for stores and plot a path
there. Shaking the phone will show the nearest restroom. 

By VERNE G. KOPYTOFF
Published: October 10, 2010
 
 
SAN FRANCISCO - Mobile phone maps have guided people through streets and
alleys around the globe. But when those people step into a sprawling
building, they can get lost. 

Inside, people have to ask strangers for directions or search for a
directory or wall map. A number of start-up companies are charting the
interiors of shopping malls, convention centers and airports to keep mobile
phone users from getting lost as they walk from the food court to the
restroom. Some of their maps might even be able to locate cans of sardines
in a sprawling grocery store. 

"It was my wife's idea - she was six months' pregnant and she couldn't find
a restroom," said Sam G. Feuer, chief executive of MindSmack, the New York
company behind FastMall, one of the indoor mapping services. "It's the same
thing for people in wheelchairs or with strollers who need an elevator." 

Users see a floor plan of a shopping mall, for example, with stores
indicated by name. Escalators, exits, restrooms and elevators are also
marked. 

FastMall has a search engine to help users find stores on its maps. Enter
"Banana Republic" and the service places a pin on the map to show the
store's location. Tap the "take me there" button and the service plots a
route to the destination. To find the nearest restroom, all users have to do
is shake their phone. 

Most of the indoor mapping apps are free, like PointInside, FastMall and
Micello, which work on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. PointInside is also
available for many Android phones. 

Because mobile Internet connections are sometimes difficult to make indoors,
some of the services download their maps onto users' phones when they first
check in on the service. If the connection later fails, the user still has
access to the map. 

The various mapping services differ in how they obtain their maps. Some get
them from mall management companies or mall developers. Others use maps that
are already available online or they copy ones posted on mall directories
(sometimes by taking photographs of them or by encouraging their users do
so). 

In almost all cases, the services have to customize the maps to fit a
standard size and font and to fill in any missing information. 

Ankit Agarwal, chief executive of Micello, an indoor mapping service based
in Sunnyvale, Calif., has created a library of nearly 2,000 maps, most of
them of American shopping malls. He said his team could recreate a mall
floor plan in a couple of hours, based on originals that they find in the
public domain. 

"We never have to visit the place," Mr. Agarwal said. No malls have
complained, he added. 

Inevitably, maps become outdated as stores close and new ones replace them.
Since the mapmakers cannot possibly keep visiting each one, they rely on
users to tell them that a map needs to be updated. 

Dan Jasper, a spokesman for Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., said his
mall - the biggest in the United States, with 520 stores - is working on its
own mobile phone app so shoppers will have a more reliable floor plan. He
thinks it is an important tool that could increase sales and traffic. 

For now, shopping malls are getting the most attention from indoor
mapmakers, although many of them hope to add casinos, stadiums, universities
and hospitals - anything big enough to get lost in and that draws big
crowds. They are also interested in outdoor destinations like theme parks,
zoos and urban shopping districts. Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, Calif., is
already available on FastMall, for instance. 

In some cases, Micello's maps show details beyond the basic four walls. A
map of the Ikea store in East Palo Alto, Calif., features an aisle winding
through the store and the locations of departments like "children's" and
"closet systems." 

Aisle411, a mobile service that is set to start next month, is hoping to
take the detail even further by allowing users to find individual products
inside stores. Shoppers in a grocery store can search for "capers," for
instance, and then get a map to the appropriate aisle. 

Nathan M. Pettyjohn, chief executive of Aisle411, based in St. Louis, said
retailers lose a large number of customers because shoppers cannot find what
they want. The problem is compounded for big-box retailers, whose vast
stores seem built to create frustration. 

Aisle411 has worked with a few retail chains and has created maps with their
help. For other stores, the company is relying on publicly available maps,
some guess work and volunteers to indicate where products are located. "We
get about 90 percent accuracy," Mr. Pettyjohn said. 

Given the early stages of indoor mapping, its business model is still a work
in progress. Location-based advertising and coupons are one possibility, as
is charging malls to create their floor plans. Some companies have tried
licensing maps to other companies. Still others are considering selling user
data to retailers and product manufacturers. 

Despite the miniboom in indoor mapping, Vikrant Gandhi, an analyst with
Frost & Sullivan, said the niche faced challenges. Mobile marketing, the
most common idea for making money, has yet to prove itself, he said. 

Google, with its dominant Google Maps, worries some in the industry. Google
could crush the tiny indoor mapmakers by creating its own competing service.
But it is just as likely that it could be a savior by buying one or more
companies or licensing their data. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.


Mr. Agarwal, from Micello, said he was just excited by the prospect of all
that remained to be mapped indoors. Speaking about his service last month at
a mobile phone conference at the University of California, San Francisco, he
looked out the window and declared, "I want to map every building on this
campus." 

A version of this article appeared in print on October 11, 2010, on page B3
of the New York edition.