india.next*

Coming up with Maps & directions for India is a bigger challenge than you think. Our competitors have set high standards already. I am talking about the road side paan-wallahs, Auto Rickshaw drivers and the likes. And to think that technology can perform better than these guys still sounds ridiculous to me. But then again, we tried. And we now know it can work.

The story: Yahoo India Maps provides location, business, landmark and partial address search along with driving directions at http://in.maps.yahoo.com for India (and the rest of the world). But wait. What is "Yahoo! Next" about it?

At the outset, We just knew location intelligence is a problem that exists in India. For instance, I noticed that people around me were always talking about how to get to places. In Trains, buses, over e-mails, IMs, Phone calls, everywhere. They were always wondering whether they took the correct turn, whether their destination is 2 kms or 3 kms away, whether they were paying extra to their Auto driver. They were also sitting and drawing ugly Map images that are not to scale and passing them as an image attachment over email. No doubt the problem existed and we wanted to solve it.

We also recognized that people here were used to a particular way of asking for directions. And it seems to work really well. For instance, I don't know what that road outside my office is called. I don't need to. I just gotta tell people "Embassy Golf Links, near Dell office" and they already know. Also, I even know of a road close to my home that does not have a name. Either nobody bothered to give it a name or nobody bothered to put a board there that says what the name of the road is. Clearly, we like our buildings and hoardings a lot.

Consider for example a typical (western style) driving directions instruction set that rely only on road names:
1 Straight on a local road eastwards
2 Right onto Infantry Rd, go <100m
3 Right onto Union Rd, go 0.1 km
4 Left onto Raj Bhavan Rd, go 1.5 km.
5 Right onto Local Road, go 0.1 km

Assume I am ever going to drive using these instructions, a number of questions pop up. Local Road? Eastwards? Do I have to go buy a magnetic compass? Can you tell me if the upcoming right is Infantry road or not? Wait a minute. I have never heard of Union Road. Am I in ulsoor or Jaya nagar? There are four roads splitting to the right from Raj Bhavan road. Which one do you mean?

I will probably just ask the next Auto driver on the whereabouts. That is just way much easier.

And so, we came up with something like this:
1 Straight (<100m) on a local road in Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore going toward Infantry Rd
2 1st Right onto Infantry Rd, go <100m
3 1st Right (past Gulshan Marriage Bhawan on the right) onto Union Rd, go 0.1 km
4 1st Left (past Sanchanan Chambers on the left) onto Raj Bhavan Rd, go 1.5 km.
Enter Sivanchetti Gardens.
5 3rd Right onto Dickenson Rd, go 0.1 km
6 2nd Left (past East Parade Church on the left) onto Mahatma Gandhi Rd, go 0.6 km.
Enter Ashok Nagar.

This is what we have come to call "Landmark and turn based driving directions". This is specially interesting to us because it solves a real problem using technology.

There are a few things Indians understand distances with. One of them is distance. The other, you will agree, is auto fare. How many times have you asked "How far is it?" and got "about 30 rupees by auto" as an answer? So, we decided to provide auto fares in appropriate cities where standardized math-computable auto fares exist. I am sure this will also come in handy for those uninitiated travellers who get ripped off by local auto drivers.

There are a bunch of other nifty features hiding beneath this product. For instance, Watch out for the "Send this to your mobile" widget in the instruction set when you search for directions. Maybe, you are interested in the "Share" feature using which you can embed a map in your blog or webpage or even take a snapshot of the map as an image.

There is a lot to write about these but I will keep them for another day. For now, Drive safe and Don't Honk when not necessary.

Popularity: 83% [?]

Hello readers,

It's been a rapid month trying to get the site up and live. It took a lot of volunteering from several folks across Yahoo! to get this finally out and I am loving this opportunity to finally have an outlet for the creative voice from folks over in Yahoo! Bangalore (yblr) & India.

So what is India.Next*? Well many things. For one this is one place where you will find cool creations, hacks [sic] from within yblr and without [sic] in the open (read more about it here and here). Additionally this is our outlet for trying out new products and services we incubate (alpha/beta) and we hope that you will actively consume these as we serve out and give us your critical (positive :-p) feeback. More over time we will be establishing a forum of interaction between our experts, intrapreneurs, leaders and the community (you!) that will foster product innovation in India. I am really excited about all these outcomes that we are planning for and can't wait to get all of this established very quickly. But for all good things there must be some wait.

You ask (rightly so) "The site is up but where is the content!" It's coming as we speak and the site content and structure will change and grow dramatically in the coming weeks. Please stay tuned for more!

I want to thank all the folks in and outside yahoo! who have helped shape this site and the goals we want to achieve.

Popularity: 97% [?]

• What kind of online content exists about our city?
• Is there one place that i can go to and find interesting photos, videos, podcasts, event information, blogs and news about our city as it created?
• What do people think about our city ?

are just few of the questions that led to the conceptualisation of Yahoo! Our City.

Yahoo! Our City provides a very interesting, rich and dynamically updated perspective of our city as seen and experienced by us all. You can use Our City to

• Explore photos, videos, events, news, weather, blogs and a lot more
• Share events, photos, videos, trip plans and blogs with others

Our City keeps you updated with the latest in your city through news, events, blogs, photos, weather and a lot more. This is the new generation of the web - City content of the users, by the users and for the users. For a start, take a look at monuments in delhi, hear podcasts about bangalore, browse Kannada and Hindi content - all content created by users. There is a lot to Explore and Share all created by users like you and me.

Check out your city (40 + 5 are available) at http://in.ourcity.yahoo.com.

The internet has to become more local, interesting, engaging and useful - the journey has just begun.

Let us know what you think about Yahoo! Our City (click on the feeback link on the footer of every page) and click on Invite button on the home page to tell your friends about it.

More from Yahoo OurCity Team Blog

Popularity: 100% [?]