MapIT's international partner Micello will be providing indoor map data for 65 malls and nine airports across SA.
Micello has used in-house technology to map 15 000 venues worldwide. Their data will add to mapIT's existing data, which now includes more than 775 000 places of interest.
"MapIT is pleased to bring yet another international solution to the South African mapping market with this partnership," says Etienne Louw, MD of local digital mapping service, MapIT. "With 40% of mobile search having location intent, indoor mapping will offer our clients a whole new dimension to their businesses."
Micello's indoor map collection includes casinos, college campuses, stadiums, museums and hospitals, in addition to malls and airports. "As the indoor mapping industry heats up, especially with recent news about Apple's acquisition of WiFiSlam, we are positioned perfectly to help grow the ecosystem by focusing on generating geo-accurate indoor venue maps," says Ankit Agarwal, CEO and founder of Micello.
Currently, the technology is accurate to within four metres. "The next step is to develop triangulation of an individual within the mall," says Pieter Geldenhuys, co-founder of Mallinfo, a local shopping mall application service that will be using mapIT's indoor map data in their apps.
Louw highlights the wide variety of possibilities that will accompany this technology. Within malls, airports, and hospitals, the technology will allow people to easily track where they have parked, he says. It could even be utilised to find empty beds in hospitals, he adds.
Mall applications will be upgradeable from current pin-drop models to real-time location tracking, allowing for features such as extensive location-based marketing, says Geldenhuys. People using apps with indoor mapping could be directed immediately to the product they are looking for, as well as alerted about special offers and their locations.
The technology is ready to be deployed, but "the ball is in the mall's court whether they want to incorporate these maps into their apps," explains Geldenhuys. "A key challenge is that retailers haven't caught on to this type of technology yet. They have databases all over the place, but are unwilling to share information that could be to their benefit."
Another challenge to the adoption of this kind of technology is the poor bandwidth situation in SA, adds Geldenhuys, noting that people are cautious about how much data they use, and that free Wi-Fi could be a useful driver for adoption.
The technology is cutting edge not just in SA but in the rest of the world too, says Geldenhuys.
"What we find in SA is that we're ahead of the world," says Louw. "We take the little bit we can get and do much more with it. We're pushing the barriers a lot more."
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