MapmyIndia Will Lead You to Businesses, Places, With New ShowNearby App

Today, MapmyIndia has launched a useful location-based service (LBS) app called ShowNearby that leads users to nearby places and venues, such as restaurants, gas stations, ATMs, and stores. ShowNearby is a free app for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

It’s actually a collaboration between ShowNearby, a Singaporean start-up that specializes in LBS (and that already has separate apps on those three platform), and the Indian digital mapping experts. This tie-up brings a sort of home-grown Google Places-like service to India for the first time.

But ShowNearby’s cleverer than just that (from a monetizing standpoint, anyway) as it comes with location-based marketing for brands and businesses – whether global or local – that allows companies to set up what are called “mobile store locators and business pages” within this ShowNearby service. So if you’re on the street, and whip out your smartphone to search for a place in ShowNearby, there’s a chance for a competing business/brand to lure you to their own store, with an eye-catching digital locator, or even a discount or promo.

In a press release, Douglas Gan, CEO of ShowNearby, said:

India’s one of our biggest opportunities as we plan the global expansion of ShowNearby after the success we’ve achieved in Singapore. We’re closely engaged with MapmyIndia to localize the application experience with innovative and dynamic content.

If you live in India and want to try out the MapmyIndia versions of the app, here are the download links for BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone.