Meridian, which is a product of Portland-based Spotlight Mobile, plugs into live and back-end data supplied by an individual venue to give the user turn-by-turn directions from his exact whereabouts inside a locale to the preferred destination -- whether that be a bathroom or bookshelf.
At launch, Meridian [iTunes link] offers indoor navigation at just two locations: Powell's Books in Portland and The Portland Art Museum. Powell's Books shoppers can use the application to navigate to any book title in stock and Portland Art Museum goers can more intelligibly find their way around the museum.
Soon Rose Quarter -- the arena where the Portland Trail Blazers play -- will also become more navigable via Meridian. This application of the Meridian platform has a lot of promise and will guide users to their seats, concession stands, bathrooms and other stadium points of interest.
Meridian has the lofty goal of being the de facto app for indoor navigation. Of course, the app makers will need to sign up a slew of clients beyond the Portland area to achieve that mission.
Eventually, Meridian believes its platform, which is currently free for venues, has the right ingredients for advertiser appeal. The user searching for a hammer, for instance, could be presented with an ad from a hammer maker. "The ad potential is kind of ridiculous," says creator Kiyo Kubo, "because it's so targeted."
Kubo hopes to raise funding for Meridian from angel investors -- it's using AngelList for help in that department -- to grow and ward off competition from other players in the space.