Citymaps Success in Partnering with NYC to Advertise

Citymaps, founded by CBS graduate was able to become the official NYC map and was able to get advertising around NYC paid for by the city.  Really cool concept, now launching new cities regularly. Really interesting way to get this website and App recognition.

NYC Launches a Better Map App for Tourists

April 2, 2012 by Sarah Kessler2

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New York City is launching a better map for its 50 million annual tourists — or at least one that makes it easier to patronize city businesses.

A new iPhone map app from the city’s official tourism center portrays businesses not as little red pins, but with their logos. It incorporates social media updates, OpenTable booking capabilities and daily deals directly into the map.

The app is a co-branded version of a map app called CityMaps that launched earlier this month. By hooking into a bundle of APIs, it’s able to expand beyond capabilities of a typical online map.

Store owners can claim their spot on the map in order to curate their presence on it, and eventually the startup hopes to make money by charging them for some of these privileges.

The NYC version of the app incorporates content from the city’s tourism organization, NYC & Company. The company has, for instance, its own promotional deals at certain businesses. Those will show up in the CityMaps app. It also curates content for specific conference and events in the city.

Those types of lists — consisting of, for example, all of the shops participating in Fashion Week or all of the restaurants participating in Restaurant week — will soon be added to the map as filters. Current filters, which white out all businesses that don’t fit the topic are more basic: Restaurants, Shopping, Hotels, Bars & Nightlife, OpenTable and Entertainment.

CityMap co-founder Elliot Cohen tells Mashable that the startup will give conference organizers tools that allow them to curate additional filters.

Though the startup declined to specify details of its relationship with the city, landing a partnership with New York City — which has developed a small army of apps and runs contests that encourage others to develop apps on its behalf — is a great boon to a just-launched service no matter the financials.

Advertisements for the new co-branded version of CityMaps will appear on bus shelters, on taxicab video screens and even on a Time Square jumbotron.