Streetdirectory.com back in business

Aug 1, 2008
Streetdirectory.com back in business
Online map website relaunched with new owner and maps created from
scratch
By Irene Tham

STREETDIRECTORY.COM is back online.

The website, whose street maps were found by a court to have violated
the copyright of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), was taken
offline in late March but is being relaunched today.

Two things are new about it: The site has new maps, created from
scratch over the past nine months, and a new owner.

JobsDB, Asia's largest online recruitment firm based in Hong Kong,
bought the streetdirectory. com Web address and its assets from
Singapore-based Virtual Map in the fourth quarter of last year for an
undisclosed sum.

The acquisition was kept under wraps until yesterday.

Mr Samuel Sung, chairman of JobsDB, told The Straits Times: 'Our
online recruitment and classified ads businesses need maps. And
streetdirectory.com is a good domain name to own.'

The revamped site offers users the conveniences of its predecessor,
such as location search by postal code, building and street names.

But the site now also allows map users to pan across a particular
neighbourhood by holding down and dragging the mouse.

Users will also be able to look for jobs based on location, since the
online street directory has been integrated with JobsDB's recruitment
engine.

A new company, called Streetdirectory, was recently incorporated here
to run the online map business spanning three countries.

The outfit has about 70 people, including land surveyors and
cartographers who chart the landmarks, buildings and roads here and
in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Mr Sung, asked why he chose to build the maps from scratch when he
could buy them from other providers, said: 'We're starting on a clean
slate. No one can question our maps. We own them.'

More than 10 senior managers from Virtual Map have joined the new
entity, including former Virtual Map managing director Firdhaus
Akber, now the managing editor at Streetdirectory.

Virtual Map is still awaiting judgment from the Court of Appeal,
Singapore's highest court, on its application to file an appeal
against an earlier High Court decision.

Meanwhile, SLA has applied to strike out Virtual Map's notice of
appeal.

The problem between the two former business partners began in 2004,
when SLA filed a suit against Virtual Map for using its copyrighted
materials after it no longer had the permission to do so.

SLA won the case in a district court. Virtual Map then appealed to
the High Court against the decision but was turned down.

When the High Court ordered Virtual Map to take down the maps that
infringed SLA's copyright in March, the map company went to the Court
of Appeal, the judgment of which is pending.

Whatever the Court of Appeal decides, Mr Akber said, Virtual Map
will 'fulfil its obligations to SLA and the lawyers'.

'We're not going to run away,' he said.

At its peak, Virtual Map had about 500 corporate customers in Asia,
for whom it customised maps used, for example, on company websites
and brochures.

Today, that customer base has under 100 names, said Mr Akber, who
expressed hope that customers would recontract with Streetdirectory.

Virtual Map will remain open till the end of this year to service
existing contracts. Until then, it will resell Streetdirectory's new
maps to these customers.