It's not just about the Map

A variance of Lance Armstrong's book title 'It's not about the bike' has been ringing in my ears for several weeks now since Nokia launched their new advertising campaign for the N-Series. The campaign (atleast in Australia) is using a new catch phrase which I believe is something like 'Maps, Pictures, Video and Music' or something to that effect.

Now as you will be aware I am a big fan of Nokia due to their quiet but continual innovation around sensory addons for their devices (see previous blogs). This has not changed since Nokia's aggressive push into the navigation market with the 6110, E90, N95 and other devices. The concern I have though is that 'It's not about the map' or better still 'It's not JUST about the map'.

I can understand that we need to slowly and easily introduce these concepts to the masses but for those of us who are actively creating, developing and supporting these new technologies we need to look further outside the traditional uses.

GPS is not only about navigation, it is not only about location based advertising, for me GPS (and other sensory devices) are about enriching content of all kinds. Yes we will be able to navigation between A & B and push advertisements to those who want it (opt in) but we need to start talking about the additional opportunities, the travel content, fitness commentary and even general publishing content which can harness and be enhanced by this new and exciting addition which we will all be utilising within 18 months.