SatNav, a Sequoia Capital funded GIS company, has introduced a free Store Locator service and detailed maps of 810 cities of India, close to the heels of its competitor MapmyIndia launching version 5 of its maps with house addresses. The store locator service offers retailers free maps driving directions on their own website and SatNav's maps, across all 810 cities mapped by SatGuide and on all GPS devices that the company sells. This is clearly a ploy to improve points of interest detail in SatNav, much like in case of Google MapMaker. Both companies are looking to crowdsource geographic information. SatNav benefits from store owners adding their location to their maps - they don't have to collect the data by themselves, and consumers have more/better information when searching. SatNav's points of interests are arranged in 42 different categories like Airlines, Airports and ATMs etc, covering all states of India. Those that are on highways or not in one of the 810 cities covered by the company would be mapped as points since the maps also include detailed road network, classified under National Highways, Major and Minor Roads. In addition to this, railway tracks are also covered for several hundred cities. Apart from SatNav and MapMyIndia, other companies in the GIS segment in the Indian market include Google Maps, Reliance ADA Group’s BIGMaps, Rediff Maps and Nokia’s Navteq. Related: - Trying Out Dial62, MapMyIndia’s Directions & Business Info Call-In Service - Driving Directions: Google, Sygic-MapMyIndia, SatNav-Nokia - MapMyIndia Gets $9M; To Expand Overseas - Tata Indicom Launches QuickFinder…
