I agree I would love to see Nearmap's photomaps become the default map underlying all consumer services. But that is a different proposition to Nearmap itself pursuing the media market and directly monetising end-user views.
On that front it'd make most sense for Sensis or Bing (Microsoft) to license the Nearmap imagery. There's little incentive for Google to switch as they are already the dominant player, unless Nearmap's imagery is cheaper than their current license. IMHO Sensis would have a killer directory & navigational product if they merged WhereIs and YellowPages data with Nearmap imagery.
I agree wholeheardetly that everyone who sees the Nearmap images would be won over by its "coolness" but I'm not sure how this wow factor translates into money for us via a media model. My concern is that we are not yet cashflow positive so investment (i.e. outflows) in a media strategy may not be the wisest move.
Right now I use GMaps for general geo searches because they are the fastest, WhereIs for directions because GMaps generally gets them wrong, and Nearmap when I need an up to date view ... in that order. I'm not sure shiny and cool is enough to generate lasting traffic that is monetisable (since we're talking media models I'll use their BS industry terms :).
I hope I'm wrong about all this though. The thing that triggered this thread was seeing the email subscription "wall" on nearmap.com. I'm struggling to see what value that's going to bring... I guess time will tell.
IPR Price at posting:
8.8¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
