In 1996 Philip and Peter Abrahamson founded High Country Software, with the goal of creating a better means to find local information.

This idea was born out of a personal need: they were starting a business in a new country, having recently relocated from New Zealand to London, UK, and there was no easy way to find out where services were located.

“Using the Yellow Pages meant hunting through long lists and confusing categories, and making many calls to businesses that had either shut down, weren't currently available to talk, were now at a new address, or simply did not have what we were looking for,” says Peter Abrahamson.

“But the Web was always available, and each site was operated by the business owners themselves, meaning that it would usually contain the latest physical address. Provided that a sufficient number of local businesses were on the Web, it was the ideal medium to find things nearby.”

So they set out to create a “nearby engine.” Their initial product was a visual 3D map of the world that could be 'walked' on interactively. But this was 1996, and the marketplace was not ready for such complex technology.

“This was a valuable learning experience,” says Peter. “We now realize the difficulty was largely with people's expectations. Until we could match the visual quality that we see around us every day, the concept wouldn't satisfy the general consumer.”

Nearby Engine Launched

They went back to the drawing board in 2000, and the result was Mobilemaps, their free open source software that can be used to create a 'local search service' anywhere in the world. The brothers have been quietly testing Mobilemaps for 3 years, and officially released it in October 2003.

So what’s the difference between Mobilemaps and an ordinary search engine?

“A nearby engine is a cross between a search engine and a Web map. It locates any form of information, particularly information contained on a Web page that is relevant to where a user is located in the real world. It then plots the nearest results on a local map. It’s all about finding a service nearby, and finding it quickly. How that information is best displayed depends on the device, whether it is a PC, palm or mobile phone.”

Another very important difference between Mobilemaps and the search engine giants Google and Overture: you can download the source code from http://www.mobilemaps.com and start your own commercial quality service.

“If you're not happy with the way a user experiences a local search, simply change the software. In many ways we are opening the playing field and throwing down the gauntlet to the old search giants in this new market.”

Why Open Source?

The ultimate goal: for web site and portal publishers world-wide to create their own local search engines. That all sounds great, but you might wonder…why give it away?

Well, instead of trying to compete head-to-head with Overture and Google, the Abrahamsons have made their product available to the masses in the hopes that those using Mobilemaps will also choose to use NearbyAds.

“NearbyAds is a commercial service that we operate to allow Web advertisers to target Mobilemaps users nearby with their keyword adverts,” says Peter. “A NearbyAd has a pinpoint location in the physical world, so that it can attract customers who are potentially a few streets away.”

“Portal publishers who choose to operate Mobilemaps have the option of switching the NearbyAds service on, which can then start to earn revenue. Additionally, sales agents working on behalf of these portals can take a proportion of the revenue for the adverts that they have sold.”

So a local portal can either install their own Mobilemaps software, or link in to another portal that is already operating a Mobilemaps service. The geotargeted ads are sent from the NearbyAds server out to each individual portal when they're created, and appear as a colored block text-result above the normal search results. Each ad click from a user can earn the portal up to 85% of the revenue that the advertiser is paying.

If Mobilemaps helps local portals make money while providing a valuable service to the local community, what could be better? And because Mobilemaps is open source software, users from any country can also contribute to its development. This sort of collaborative development effort has produced other well known and widely used products, such as Perl, MySQL, Apache, and Mapserver.

“One of the more fundamental areas is to provide a massively distributed network of Mobilemaps portals. Each portal can share results with other portals to obtain the best possible search results for a user's query. We predict this combined computing power will surpass that of today's Google, and the revenues will be shared by the communities who operate it.”

More Innovations

The Abrahamsons also lay claim to several innovations. Mobilemaps was the first nearby engine to have a single input box. E.g. Enter 'advertising Los Angeles', and the software will automatically detect that you are trying to search from Los Angeles, without having to fill an additional location box. The brothers say that this single-step innovation speeds up user entry dramatically. To try it, visit the demo site at http://www.mobilemaps.com (The demo only has California listings.)

“At its heart, we believe the Mobilemaps nearby engine is faster than Google, and is the first to provide the ability to 'zoom out' to the nearest results. If the nearest results are hundreds of miles away, it will not limit the results to within 15 miles. It achieves this by using a mathematical principle called a 'peano code' or a space filling curve.

Web searches increasingly dwarf online Yellow pages in search numbers, and due to the greater depth of information available on the Web to both view and search for, the Abrahamsons see this pattern repeating for local search. But the existing options are limited.

“Overture's local search service is more similar to a traditional Yellow Pages search. Rather than searching the Web's body of information, they have chosen to make use of business directories for their lists,” says Peter. “While this approach is arguably more familiar to users of paper Yellow Pages, every user is familiar with the problems this older approach entails: information is out of date, information is sparse, and when you are seeking a local company with specialist skills, you are usually not looking for a service within a broad category.”

Future Development

Do the Abrahamsons plan to develop more products for the local online market?

“Yes, we have a long list of planned improvements! The Mobilemaps development will happen with our input and the input of other software developers around the world, depending on the needs that arise from portal owners and users.”

What are the real needs of someone searching locally on a daily basis? Now that local search is finally getting attention, those needs will become more defined in the coming months. And as needs are identified, opportunities will be too.

“There are opportunities at all levels: from the advertisers with local businesses who can finally connect with their local customers; to the local sales people who can sell advertisements independently of large monopolies; to the portals who can facilitate this interaction. The largest opportunities will come to entrepreneurial people who are at the starting gates first, and our goal is to simply provide the best tools for the task.”

http://www.Mobilemaps.com
peter@Mobilemaps.com
philip@Mobilemaps.com