UMI has long argued that a significant piece of the value in using online maps & directions stems from the transitive property of interactive media–to some degree, the experience can come off the page and become portable.This means users are endowed with an artifact that represents the digital, but can engage with it in a tactile world. It would be easy to digress and pontificate on post-realism via Walter Benjamin or Jean Baudrillard, but Umibot lacks that memory implant, so have no fear…

The idea of maps & directions are to get from one point to another point. They are meant to be didactic and support wayfinding activities. That much is clear. It then follows that many users would print maps/directions and take them on the trip–other options may include a ‘send to phone’ feature, mobile browsing for directions, use of a GPS device or transcribing/summarizing directions by hand.

If a user prints a map and uses it for wayfinding, it becomes an invaluable artifact during the course of that journey–it may be referenced multiple times and the ‘eyeball quality’ is undoubtedly high (who has heard of a casual direction-follower?). So this begs the question…why are printed map/direction pages missing the obvious–highly-targeted and relevant advertising? A review of print-ready directions from Google, Yahoo!, Live Local, MapQuest, Ask and MSN reveal some interesting things.

This summary table highlights some key questions that may be obvious, but warrant consideration:

• Can multi-page directions be avoided? Should they be minimized?

• Do consumers need vast flexibility in ‘configuring a map for printing?’

Most importantly, does advertising make sense on a printed map? This is valuable real estate that currently looks like a greenfield site.

NOTE: Images below have been cropped and resized to fit this blog, so page lengths may not make sense, but they are–print them yourself to see!