Indonesia: Google, the world’s largest search engine has launched Google Maps Indonesia with three local partners to deliver more local content for Internet goers. The venture includes sharing location search technology and information on places and traffic.
“Google Maps Indonesia is very relevant for local users because one in every five searches here has a location title,” said Derek Callow, head of marketing for Southeast Asia during the launch of Google Maps Indonesia. He added that currently Google Maps Indonesia was working with two local location-based websites, Urbanesia.com and LewatMana.com and cellular provider Telkomsel.
Urbanesia.com founder Selina Limman said that her website would feed around 220,000 local business entities to Google Maps Indonesia.
“That will include company addresses, contact information, user reviews and directions,” she said, adding that she expected an increase in the number of Urbanesia.com users to a million a month from the current 580,000 a month.
Limman also said the cooperation would benefit businesses listed on her website for clicks from Google Maps users.
Urbanesia.com is an online lifestyle directory focusing on the location of shops, cafes and restaurants in Jakarta, while LewatMana.com focuses on traffic information around Jakarta.
LewatMana.com founder Hendry Soelistyo said as per the agreement, Google would receive traffic condition images of Jakarta’s main roads, fed live through their webcams.
“Users can access real situations of traffic points when they click on the ‘Webcam’ menu on Google Maps,” he said, adding that users could also view road incidents such as flooding, blockages and accidents.
Soelistyo hoped the cooperation with Google could increase the number of his website users by 30 per cent from the current 2 million per month.
Telkomsel also expected the cooperation with Google could help the company achieve its 100 million connection target by the year’s end from the current 93 million.
“We are using Google Maps data to enhance our Telkomsel Lacak service [mobile application focusing on location-based services],” said, Ririn Widaryani, Deputy Vice President for product life-cycle management, Telkomsel.
Source: Jakarta Post
