Today when I was walking around Hanoi Old Quarter, I ran into some “Tourist Information” kiosks. They offer information about restaurants, beauty services, banks, etc. for tourists. They are now all old and under bad maintenance. Some are turned off, some are working with crippled touch screen. As far as I know, they were installed just more than 2 years ago by Hanoi Tourism Department to serve APEC economic leaders’ conference (Please correct me if I’m wrong, and I’d like to get more information about those kiosks in other cities). Hey I was not gonna complain of public services of Vietnam, just because I found that the map used for those kiosks were powered by Diadiem.com – currently the leading mapping service provider in Vietnam. Doesn’t it prove that Diadiem is very well - connected to the government? But I haven’t seen any further partnership between Diadiem and Tourism Department.

Several days ago, Diadiem just launched its 3D map for Ho Chi Minh City. If you ever wonder why Diadiem needs more than 100 employees, here you got it.

Until now, Diadiem covers only 12 cities in Vietnam. Why instead of spending time, money & people to cover its service for all 64 cities in Vietnam first as promised, it suddenly turns to 3D mapping? The answer is monetization. 3D mapping means virtual billboards. Is Diadiem struggling for a way to make money?

“Song song với quá trình số hóa phần mềm bản đồ các tỉnh thành còn lại, việc nắm bắt và phục vụ nhu cầu quảng bá của các Doanh nghiệp trên www.diadiem.com  là một phần quan trọng trong chiến lược phát triển sản phẩm của Dia Diem JSC. “ (IDGVV)

As you can see, Diadiem will focus on ads for entreprises on its site.

Calling for ads

But actually with all recent activities, I don’t know where Diadiem is heading to. Its iPhone application doens’t recieve much optimistic feedbacks. 3D mapping is nice to have, but is it a “must-have” for users at the moment? I question about Diadiem’s traffic. Diadiem is a mapping service – somehow you can see it as a Google map clone, but can you show me any site that is based on Diadiem map?

Maybe Diadiem is rich, but with this rate of spending money, how long will it last?

Tags: Diadiem, monetization, Strategy