mrdin, Mr Crowther did use the term walnut and he realises the mistake. :)
http://nearmapceo.posterous.com/the-walnut
The funny thing is the Brisbane Times is still using that quote on http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/qldfloods --- VIEW FULL-SCREEN MAP: "It's super high resolution and you can zoom in and see a walnut on the ground ..." ---
Its technically wrong and it might create the odd bit of confusion amongst journalists & shareholders but the vast majority of users don't care. If you look at a Twitter search for nearmap[1] or their Facebook page[2] the feedback is all overwhelmingly positive.
People are finding cows on roofs, fellas sitting in a spa in flood waters and all sorts of zany things. No one is looking for walnuts!
This media attention doesn't immediately translate to dollars which is fundamentally what people should be valuing the company on. However it does raise awareness of Nearmap significantly; before the floods the Facebook page had less than 900 fans, today it is over 2,400. Google Trends and Alexa both show increased traffic. Most of it is not directly monetisable traffic since the business model targets Government and commercial users but it is still valuable to be known.
I find it difficult to think that there aren't at least a few new potential (commercial) customers who only know of Nearmap due to their coverage of the Qld floods - I mean at one point it was on the front pages of both the Brisbane Times and the Courier Mail. And the Victorian surveys are still to go live...
