AUSTIN, Texas-Marissa Mayer, VP of consumer products at Google, gave a keynote on Google Maps at South by Southwest (SXSW) on the first day of the Interactive Festival, March 11.
Mayer kicked off by asking the audience how many people used maps on their phone. The vast majority pointed toward the sky in placid agreement.
“There is something profound about location and mobile technology,” said Mayer in a tone of enthusiastic glee.
The entire session was based on that old business school mantra: location, location, and location. An interesting statistic divulged by Mayer was that 40% of Google Maps usage was actually through mobile, which adds up to 150 million mobile users.
Version 5.2 is the newest download for the map software, but version 5.0 changed the platform the most, from tile-based to vector-based, making it faster, smoother and with the ability to take up less space along with an addition of 3D views.
Google Maps Navigation, on the other hand, allows not only for GPS technology but also puts the actual look of the street in the map, including what road features and businesses are located in the same viewpoint the motorist sees.
Thirty-five million miles a day are logged on Google Maps Navigation while users drive, noted Mayer, which adds up to over 12 billion miles a year.
