[aerosuch]

Yes, we can live without indoor maps, but we're suffering through a lot of inefficiencies just because we don't know yet that there's a better option.

I want indoor maps because they can help reduce healthcare costs. It costs us all money when people get lost in hospitals. While environmental signage helps, it's often not sufficient. Visitors end up interrupting doctors and nurses to ask for directions. This directly costs the hospital money (leads to higher personnel costs), and leads to a poor customer experience (affects the recovery process for patients and families). It is surprising how many people get lost in hospitals: http://twitter.com/lostinabuilding

In addition to navigation, there are uses for facilities management, inventory management, real estate sales, and analytics on how people use buildings. I'm a big fan of using data to improve human efficiency, and these can help save time/energy/money.

For retail environments, indoor maps present targeted advertising opportunities, which can lead to more efficient advertising spending for brands and retailers, and time savings for consumers. This is part of why Google is so interested in indoor maps.

[batista]

>I want indoor maps because they can help reduce healthcare costs. It costs us all money when people get lost in hospitals.

Really? Like how much money? Seems like it needs a huge "citation needed" sign.