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Technology
Using the new Compass service, Vodafone customers with GPS-enabled
BlackBerries can receive graphical and voice directions to nearby
amenities such as petrol stations, parking buildings and restaurants
using location information sourced from the Yellow Pages database.
Blair
Glubb, Yellow Pages Group's former marketing director who last month
moved across to a newly created role of digital media director, said
the group had "geo-coded" about 99 per cent of the businesses and
residences on its database.
This put the company in a strong
position to partner mobile phone operators and other providers as
consumer and business interest in location-based services intensified.
"One
of the key points for us is that we are looking to partner with
essentially anybody with whom we can get broader distribution of our
business listings and data," Glubb said.
"We'll be working as
closely as we possibly can with Vodafone and Telecom to help them
enable the services they're looking to launch in that space."
While
GPS tracking is currently only available on a small number of high-end
mobile phones, that is expected to change over the next year or two as
the technology behind it becomes cheaper.
Telecom does not yet
offer a navigation service equivalent to Compass, but is likely to do
so once it launches its new WCDMA network later this year.
Vodafone Australia launched a similar Compass service in Australia last year.
One of the popular aspects of the Australian service has been linking it to the national database of petrol prices.
This
enables customers to see a list of petrol prices from all nearby
service stations and, if they chose, receive directions to the outlet
offering the lowest price.
Vodafone New Zealand's general manager
of product and services, Kursten Shalfoon, said the service could not
be offered here because this country did not have an equivalent central
database of petrol prices.
However, he said Vodafone was
interested in extending the Compass service to make use of similar
databases where they were available.
Yellow Pages Group is banking on its comprehensive database being
the jewel that wins it deals as demand increases for "location-based
services" delivered over mobile phones.
Yellow Pages data includes geographical co-ordinate information for most homes and businesses.
Telecom's
former directory arm, sold to a private equity consortium just over a
year ago, has been ramping up investment in web-based and mobile phone
technologies.
This month it plans to launch a "Yellow mobile"
directory service accessible on Telecom and Vodafone mobiles equipped
with WAP internet browsing capabilities.
Yellow Pages also plans
to launch a text version of its 018 directory service which will allow
mobile phone users to text in the type of service they are looking for,
and the general location, to receive a listing of businesses that match
the description in the area.
The company this month began
supplying its business data for a new GPS navigation service Vodafone
is offering to users of its high-end BlackBerry phones.
PetrolWorld 040608
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