Nomao – the place to bee

As a mapping service, we are always on the lookout for other websites that display information on a map. It’s always very inspiring to see how others use geolocalisation and community-driven content to build innovative and useful solutions.

Nomao is an interesting service that we’ve discovered recently. Their website allows you to search for businesses and other types of information on a specific location. You can look for a dentist in Paris, a hotel in New York or a club in Madrid. All the information is gathered from users: as a user you can add locations and rate existing locations (simply by clicking on an “i like” button). The platform can even sync with the preferences of your friends on facebook, which is a very interesting way of gathering information from targeted users. The map itself is also impressive: areas are colored in red, and each type of business has its own icon (hotels, bars, restaurants, events…).

Regarding data, I performed a simple test to see which countries have the most user inputs.

1. “restaurant, paris” = 12,145 results

2. “restaurant, berlin” = 2,514 results

3. “restaurant, london” = 983 results

4. “restaurant, new york city” = 91 results

5. “restaurant, tokyo” = 6 results

It’s safe to conclude that, as of today, nomao is strong in France, quite strong in Europe, but still weak in other parts of the world. Of course, we know that it takes quite some time to build a significant user base around the world… and since Nomao is currently looking for a country manager in the US, I guess they’re already trying to reach for countries outside Europe.

Nomao is a strong service in France with a great concept, and will probably manage to spread to other countries in the near future, but beware of competitors that are also trying to corner the market of localised search!