WATBlog Spots: First Look at the BIGMaps Interface Thanks to 13B – The Film

In the summer of 2008, we provided some updates about BIGMaps – the ideology, the team strength and the expected launch date. We also followed it up with the story that talks about the acquisition of Whrrl and how that may catapult BigAdda into the Big League of Mobile Social Networking with the ability to provide location updates, and location based social networking. This went well with the development of Big Maps because that is the mapping interface that the technology would sit on.

Well, we have for you, a first look at the Big Maps interface.

Just this morning i was browsing through the website of the film 13B (releasing this friday) and found an interesting link – ‘The Ghost Locator’. Clicking on the same i was directed to an HTML page that contains a mashup of the BIGMaps interface. The mashup basically has a list of the spookiest locations in India (a good branding synergy because 13B is supposed to be a horror film).13B is a BIG Pictures release so that explains it!

The BigMaps website says that they are ‘coming soon’.

We had commented earlier saying that the interface may be less than perfect but it is surprisingly good. Locations are marked well, the maps are extremely detailed (for Mumbai atleast) and there are signs of businesses that BIG is looking to get into.

Key Pointers:

1) BIG is looking to exploit the public transport route mapper that Google lacks in India. If you zoom into the maps for Mumbai, you will notice that all the bus stops and train stations have been marked to the T. This ensures that BIG is looking to be a total solutions provider in the space – something that Google is for the US.

2) BIG looks like it wants to get into local search as well. All the eateries, banks and ATM’s have been clearly marked. The Reliance group also has a directory of local business in a particular area because of the OF cables that they have been laying all over the country for a few years now. They have the GIS data so it only makes sense to couple that with a location mapped local search application by gathering a little more data or phishing data from already existing local search provider. Obviously they could also have a partnership with a local search provider but they seem like they would be more comfortable building their own service – whatever it takes.

3) With the local search capabilities, social networking via BigAdda and the ability to provide social recommendations based on where you are (Whrrl technology), BIG is virtually looking at a Burrp meets Google Latitude kind of application with the ability to chat with your friends.

Will BIG be able to scale this?

Well it all depends on the Network Effects that they are able to bring about. With me, comes a network of my friends and their friends etc. Currently, these predictions look exciting. BIG clearly is looking at itself as a core social + networking service provider (just like Google/ Facebook/ MSN) as opposed to a peripheral service provider (Twitter/ Yahoo Answers).

How long will it take before we see BIG Maps Live?

Last year, our sources had confirmed a 2 year time period. While the product has taken shape, i think it will still be atleast another year before the service goes live. Reason, if you zoom into the smaller cities, then the Maps are not up to date. You cannot zoom beyond a certain level.

With the amount of detail that BIG is looking to achieve with their maps, one can safely say that there is *some* time before the same amount of precision that we see on the Mumbai maps is replicated nationally.

Till then, go watch 13B! :p