Mapping the Great Indoors

A decade ago, MapQuest lead the charge to provide street-by-street navigation on the Web. Now the race is on to map the great indoors, including shopping malls, airports, arenas and other areas that currently appear as big blank spots on web mapping services.

Startups Aisle411, Micello, Guidebook and Meridian, and the monstrous Google are all in the game with a vision to provide apps that pull up relevant information on everyday indoor journeys. In November, Wal-Mart Stores released a trip-planning iPhone app that shows the shortest path to complete your shopping list at select locations. And shoppers at the sprawling Portland’s Powell’s Books can download an app that will provide turn-by-turn directions through the store to a specific book title. Enthusiasts are quickly dreaming up new possibilities and pushing to make it happen - imagine what a map app could do for University Freshmen or tourists at The Met. A conference attendee can map out the quickest route through their session locations, and the hot dog vendor could locate where you’re sitting in the Staples Center after you’ve placed your order through your mobile device.

But all this requires accuracy, which means a tough process of inputting detailed engineering maps and pinpointing obstructed satellites. To digitize a building’s floor plan, mapping companies ask venues to send in any architectural files they have for programmers to create a digital, clickable diagram.  

Once the digital map is created, GPS satellite gaps need help filling where ceilings and walls obstruct their signal and reduce their accuracy. To keep reliability at 30 feet indoors, someone has to walk every square foot of a location three or four times, stopping every few feet, manually tapping on a mobile device their location in the venue’s map and then spinning around so that their device registers all the signals in proximity. The process is labor-intensive, so currently limited to big, highly-trafficked locations like airports... or companies who can afford to pay.    

However, this is just the beginning of map app development. Google is already working to make indoor mapping possible for smaller locations through a free online tool called Floor Plans, which accepts documents from building owners and generates a map. Google has introduced maps for more than 20 airports, hundreds of Home Depots and every Ikea store in the U.S., all available on their Android operating system for smart phones. As systems become more accurate in determining your exact indoor location, it opens doors for marketers to push messaging (or promotions) specific to what’s nearby - making geographic-based promotions more precise.
 

 
Source: Businessweek