Marcus Thielking is cofounder of Skobbler, a provider of mobile map-based solutions that use OpenStreetMap data.

Map lovers, 2012 was our year.

From Apple unveiling and then apologizing for Apple Maps, to the emergence of the collaborative and crowdsourced OpenStreetMap, for those fascinated by digital mapping technologies, 2012 was a critical point in time. And with location-based services powered by map data expected to reach 1.4 billion users by 2014, you can bet the innovation and competition we witnessed will continue in 2013.

So, what’s next? Here are the top five moments I expect we’ll see in the digital maps space in 2013:

1. OpenStreetMap gets better

With over one million contributors to date, a number that has doubled approximately every 14 months since 2005 and shows no signs of slowing, the OpenStreetMap — affectionately known as the “Wikipedia of maps”— is quickly becoming one of the most popular mapping platforms on the planet. And, the more users lend the project their location expertise, the better OpenStreetMap’s data will ultimately turn out to be. In fact, today, OpenStreetMap has already become the most detailed digital map available in countries like England and Germany. With its ever-increasing user base, the data can only continue to improve. This is hugely important for developers seeking to build their own location-based products and services.

Beyond just being cost effective, OpenStreetMap delivers levels of detail, accuracy (beyond just the street networks) and flexibility not possible with some of the more traditional map players. As the platform advances thanks to user growth, developers in need of mapping data will continue to abandon relationships with guys like Google Maps, TomTom and others, integrating OpenStreetMap data into their own offerings.

2. Apple Maps will get better, too

Apple Maps has been categorized by many as the company’s largest black eye (at least recently). Not only did the app suffer from a data issue, but it was clear the company didn’t have the right team in place building the product, as it couldn’t fully deliver on the fundamentals (like putting bridges in the right places). It was a colossal letdown that led to firings and public apologies, and I guess this should be the case, given this, this, or this. Here’s the thing, though, for all of the criticisms, Apple Maps will only get better.

Whether it will come internally (unlikely), or from the integration with an external mapping party of some sort (see Apple’s rumored acquisition of Waze, although, I think a company like TomTom makes more sense given their base technology and mapping talent), look for Apple to improve on its service. Google knows this and won’t stop updating its own map so as to take full advantage of its head start and ensure that its market position will remain solidified. Apple doubters remember, though – and there are quite a few doubters out there today – the company has long been a bastion of innovation in every arena, so expect the Maps product to slowly find its way back and be a very big player in 2013.

3. Google Maps will lose some of its luster

Apple Maps was the best thing ever to happen to Google Maps. Upon its release, people realized just how valuable Google’s service was through comparison. They also realized how important maps were more generally. For the end-user, the effort and skill required to produce a digital map was, for once, clear. The press for Google was unsurprisingly positive. It couldn’t have asked for a better situation.

However, a mere few months prior, the seemingly unflappable Google was the one on the receiving end, seeing negative press for Google Maps after deciding to charge high-volume users of its maps API. The moment positioned Google as the corporate entity that it is, rather than a driver of innovation. That’s when we started to see defections en masse from Google Maps to the OpenStreetMap, with Foursquare, Wikipedia, and even Apple, leading the charge. While Google has since reversed course, it’s an issue that will crop up again soon and perhaps shift the narrative – in a negative way – for Google.

4. Partnerships to differentiate

For end users interested in a great mapping experience, whether it’s for navigation, direction-finding, and the like, maps can begin to seem redundant. More competition means more mapping services, but it should also mean more originality, allowing one platform to differentiate itself from the next. Google Maps, for instance, has Street View as a feature and is rolling out 3D functionality to stand out from a flood of new challengers. However, in order to be truly unique in an increasingly cluttered space, there are more creative opportunities for map makers to take advantage of, namely through partnerships with other location-based services that are eager to benefit from the scale afforded through map services.

For instance, take Nooly, a startup that allows you to view the weather, in real-time, for any point of interest (it’s location-based via GPS and seems to use Google Maps, currently). Partnering with them and leveraging their API would provide a great end-user benefit and allow a map service to carve out a true point of differentiation relative to other players. I think we’ll see more partnerships like this throughout the year.

5. More maps to come

With mobile proliferation, maps are becoming more and more essential each day, therefore, it only makes sense that more services will pop up, and that more existing companies will want a piece of the pie (Apple entering the fray is really just the beginning). This was especially true in 2012 – think Amazon’s November announcement – and it will only continue in 2013. Could Facebook, for example, enter the mapping space? The recent debut of its Graph Search function could make that a possibility, given location’s centrality to any search platform (and, if Facebook ever does decide to move forward with its own smartphone, a map will be core to that service, as well).

Now, these are just a few possibilities I think we’ll see in the mapping space this year.

Did I miss anything? What do you think will be some of the key map moments in 2013?

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We’ve seen a great deal of speculation in the past week about Apple buying a company to help it solve its nagging mapping headache. The big rumor, both started and squashed by TechCrunch, was Waze, the crowdsourced mapping and traffic app.

The only problem with that theory? Waze would only slow Apple down.

At least, according to Skobbler’s Marcus Thielking. He’s the cofounder of Skobbler, a spinoff from Navigon that sells one of the top mapping solutions in the world: GPS Navigation 2. It’s got a No. 1 sales ranking in app stores in 20 countries and has sold more than three million copies. It’s also based on OpenStreetMap, the crowdsourced “Wikipedia of maps.”

“There are only two companies that could possibly make sense for Apple to buy,” Thielking said this morning from Europe. “There’s Garmin, which doesn’t use TomTom, on which Apple Maps is built, and there’s TomTom itself. TomTom would be my bet.”

The problem that Apple faces? Buying just any mapping company is not a solution. Apple needs a quick fix — something on the order of months, not years — and buying a company with an incompatible dataset or base technology would ensure a long, painful integration process.

“Purchasing a company that has the talent but does not necessarily solve their issues right away … it could be feasible, but it would probably take a two-year time frame … and that’s not what Apple is looking for,” he told me.

And the core mapping technology is not even what Waze is focused on anymore, according to Thielking, who sees Waze as having pivoted from its initial vision of mapping toward traffic solutions for drivers. That’s significant, because the hard part of mapping is not necessarily the basic grid of the roads: It’s the details in navigation and the richness of local data.

That hard part is why Skobbler uses OpenStreetMap data. With more than a million contributions as of today or tomorrow, the dataset is unsurpassed in some regions — especially in hyperlocal data — and growing quickly in many others. But Apple can’t use OpenStreetMap, according to Thielking, since as a global company it cannot simply focus on the areas where OSM has good data — it needs a global solution with a fairly high global level of quality.

And it needs that solution quickly.

“Owning a digital map these days and especially in the future is an incredibly valuable resource. It’s very hard to copy and very fundamental to everything, particularly in an era of mobile solutions and mobile data,” Thielking says. “That is why Google is doing what they’re doing … and it’s one of the reasons why Apple is in this space.”

Apple wanted to trump Google’s mapping product, but blew it in terms of recognizing the massive complexity of any mapping product, Thielking told me.

All of which means that if there’s any company that Apple might or should be looking to acquire, it would be TomTom.

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

What a shock: Google Maps is not going to be available on Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet. Instead, Skobbler is launching ForeverMap 2 on Kindle Fire — and Nook – to take its place.

The Berlin-based company builds mobile navigation products based on OpenStreetMap data. And it sees a major opportunity in the obvious mapping void on probably the most popular non-iPad tablet platform.

“Amazon’s devices do not include pre-installed maps, and Google Maps isn’t even available,” said Skobbler co-founder Marcus Thielking in a statement. “We offer Kindle Fire users a solution that’s second to none in the Amazon App Store.”

Amazon can hardly expect Google to provide a mapping solution for Kindle, of course.

The giant online retailer and service provider has legally and ethically hijacked Android, the mobile operating system created by Google, to create Kindle, neatly excising Android’s links and hooks to Google services and replacing them with Amazon’s own content ecosystem. Google can’t feel good about that and so far hasn’t deigned to offer its apps on Amazon’s app store.

So Skobbler has jumped into the void.

And the company is offering an extremely interesting product: an open-source map built by 900,000 volunteers that is free for online use, with over 1,000 in-app purchases available at $0.99 and up that buy offline map access for cities, states, and countries. Cities are $0.99, states are $1.99, countries are $2.99, and continents are $5.99. Alternatively, for $9.99, Kindle Fire users can purchase complete and unlimited offline accessibility to all global maps.

In other words, it’s a great option for travelers who don’t want to pay cellular fees for data and roaming.

OpenStreetMap is a crowdsourced mapping project — a Wikipedia for maps — which Apple used in iPhoto at one point, FourSquare and other location-based social networking and mapping apps use, and some, including Thielking, believe will eventually surpass both Google and Apple’s current mapping solutions.

Nokia also provides a mapping solution on Kindle Fire, but Thielking says it is “extremely limited,” with insufficient detail and coverage.

ForeverMap 2 will be available on Kindle Fire and Nook later today.

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