Yesterday, Matthew Leske (Product Manager at Google Maps Australia) posted an article that well could be the end of the map as we know it. Companies can pay to place their logo on Google Maps. Only the announcement didn't become too specific on that:

"These easily recognisable logos more closely depict online what the offline world looks like, so next time you're trying to find your way on the map you can navigate more easily using these icons as landmarks."

This is the first step to a "billboardization" of Google Maps.

Let's see how it would look if rolled out:

Anyone needing that?

Just don't try to claim the move is designed to be a navigational aide.

The right picture is taken from the movie Logorama, a 17-minute animated film made by the French collectibe H5. The film depicts events in a stylized Los Angeles, and is told entirely through the use of more than 2,500 contemporary and historical logos and mascots. The film won the Prix Kodak at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 82nd Academy Awards.

Assuming you got the buzz around Google Maps Navigation in the U.S. and consequently conventional PNAVs have been touted dead - or at least almost dead - here's just another perspective. GNav might swap over to Europe in 2Q10, earlier or later ... doesn't make a difference as a fully connected solution isn't a solution than rather a problem.

Though its features are impressive, breathtaking, (add your adjectives) ... it'll become a huge problem space - for both mobile carriers, end users and Google trying to offer a satisfying experience.

1. Mobile carriers want us to use mobile data but can't come up with demand: a 3G signal might be there but as too many users roam into the same UMTS cell, making everyone's share of the bandwidth smaller - resulting in insufficient bandwidth for data-hungry connected navigation solutions. Carriers can't seriously be interested in beefing up their networks as data prices drop faster than bandwidth grows. Ask any carrier rep for the realistic bandwidth available within moving vehicles ... here you go.
   
2. End Users within cars moving that are relying on their fancy iPhones and Androids become crabby as fully connected apps might well give them directions - but bandwidth is too limited to stream map tiles.
3. Google hence inevitably will offer an end-user product that is beyond their own standards of delivering a seamless user experience. Though it's free, fat and impressive - it likely won't solve the use case it was designed for: taking you safely from here to there.
4. Cost. Although the EU introduced a wholesale cap of €1 per megabyte downloaded - this quickly is eaten up by the amount of streaming map data consumed by connected devices within cars crossing European borders. Even if rendered to the smallest possible extend, the weight of many lightweight map tiles add up quickly. Consumers travelling outside their home networks will use a connected Android only once. And they will regret doing so after recovering from the exorbitant data roaming bill a month later. And this likely won't change too soon as mobile carriers love that little backdoor into our pockets. So the cost of a free product is high - for both the end user and Google.
   

There is some inherent logic why Nokia/Ovi, TomTom, Navigon and the usual suspects do only render frugal vector maps on their devices. The collateral won't change too soon: abundant bandwidth, cheap like water.