Here at Micello, we’re building a game-changing indoor mapping platform. We’re working in completely new territory — defining standards for representing indoor maps and innovating on the fly. It’s a nice treat then, when a nascent industry like our own gets a major boost. On Monday, there was an overwhelmingly positive response to the New York Times article on indoor mapping – the idea has gone mainstream and it’s changed the world.
It was the most emailed piece in the NYT Technology section, and spin-off articles were published around the world. A segment on indoor mapping was also aired at primetime on Fox News in the evening. The user reaction has been astounding: all three apps mentioned in the article, including our own, were bumped up into the top 10 navigation apps in the Apple iTunes App Store. It nudged the entire indoor mapping space up a step.
The piece highlights a few of the many companies working tirelessly to solve indoor location-based challenges: FastMall, PointInside, Aisle411, and Micello. As we learned in Econ 101, competition is good; it serves as a catalyst for innovation and ultimately moves the whole industry forward. It also helps foster greater interest in the sector as a whole. At Micello, we welcome the competition, and we want to thank all of the companies out there who are working hard to grow the indoor LBS ecosystem. The work we are doing has enormous value to users, and we all want to see this industry reach its full potential.
Special thanks to Verne Kopytoff, the author of the NYT piece, for seeing the value of this emerging technology, and for sharing it with the world.
Micello: Indoor Cartography 