[Openstreetmap] Fwd: Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service

[Roger Longhorn]

>Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2005 08:52:34 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Kate Lance <klance_remote at yahoo.com>
>To: SDI-legal-econ <legal-econ at lists.gsdi.org>
>Subject: [GSDI Legal Econ] Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service
>fyi..... article on page C1 of The New York Times today.
>.... nice to see 'geo' mentioned in mainstream press.....
>
><http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/technology/18maps.html?oref=login>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/18/technology/18maps.html?oref=login
>July 18, 2005  THE NEW YORK TIMES
>
>Marrying Maps to Data for a New Web Service
>By John Markoff
>
>SAN FRANCISCO, July 14 - In 1991, David Gelernter, a computer scientist at 
>Yale, proposed using software to create a computer simulation of the 
>physical world, making it possible to map everything from traffic flow and 
>building layouts to sales and currency data on a computer 
>screen.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = 
>"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
>
>Mr. Gelernter's idea came a step closer to reality in the last few weeks 
>when both Google and Yahoo published documentation making it significantly 
>easier for programmers to link virtually any kind of Internet data to 
>Web-based maps and, in Google's case, satellite imagery.
>
>Since the Google and Yahoo tools were released, their uses have been 
>demonstrated in dozens of ways by hobbyists and companies, including an 
>annotated map guide to the California wineries and restaurants that 
>appeared in the movie "Sideways" and instant maps showing the locations of 
>the recent bombing attacks in London.
>
>Later this summer, Microsoft plans to introduce a competing service, 
>Virtual Earth, with software that programmers will be able to use in 
>similarly creative ways.
>
>So far the uses have been noncommercial. But Yahoo, Google and Microsoft 
>are creating the services with the expectation that they will become a 
>focal point in one of the next significant growth areas in Internet 
>advertising: contextual advertisements tied to specific locations. Such 
>ads would be embedded in maps generated by a search query or run alongside 
>them.
>
>While the companies have not yet disclosed how they intend to profit, one 
>likely model is that the programming tools would be licensed on the basis 
>of a revenue split from the advertising generated by use of the maps.
>
>"There are billions of dollars of commerce down the road," said Chris 
>Churchill, chief executive of Fathom Online, a search-engine advertising 
>firm based in New York. "It will all be an advertising-supported model, 
>which is an epiphany for many people."
>
>Viewed broadly, the new services represent a shift to what is being 
>described as "Web 2.0," a new generation of Internet software technologies 
>that will seamlessly plug together, much like Lego blocks, in new and 
>unexpected ways.
>
>"These are small pieces loosely joined," said Tim O'Reilly, chief 
>executive of O'Reilly Media, a publishing and conference company based in 
>Sebastopol, Calif. "People are creating new functionality by combining 
>these different services."
>
>While location-based advertising revenue is only beginning to emerge from 
>the new mapping services, the tools being made available, known as 
>application programming interfaces, or A.P.I.'s, have already led to an 
>outburst of innovative applications.
>
>This spring, even before the Google programming interfaces were published, 
>a Silicon Valley programmer, Paul Rademacher, wrote software making it 
>possible to display real estate listings from the bulletin-board site 
>Craigslist overlaid on Google Maps.
>
>The resulting mash-ups, as the hybrid Web services are called, can be 
>viewed at housingmaps.com. The site has already attracted more than a 
>half-million viewers and now receives more than 10,000 visits a day. 
>Virtually all the traffic has come from Internet word-of-mouth publicity; 
>Mr. Rademacher said he had posted only a single brief notice on Craigslist 
>asking for testers when he started the service.
>
>The idea came to Mr. Rademacher while he was driving around Silicon Valley 
>looking for a home to rent. Before starting on his reconnaissance mission, 
>he said he had painstakingly printed out the location of each rental 
>listing on a different map.
>
>"I was driving around with a huge stack of paper," he recalled. "That was 
>the 'Ah-ha' moment; it was obvious they should all be on a single map."
>
>Because the new hybrid services raise potentially thorny questions about 
>how revenue might be shared as well as potential disputes over the 
>ownership of digital information, Mr. Rademacher said he had decided to 
>avoid accepting advertisements on his site and had done it purely as a 
>proof of concept.
>
>Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are taking different strategic approaches to 
>map services.
>
>For example, while Google has encouraged enthusiastic experimenters like 
>Mr. Rademacher, Microsoft is planning to cater to professional software 
>developers, apparently calculating that they will produce work more likely 
>to attract advertisers.
>
>"We're all about developers," said Stephen Lawler, general manager of 
>Virtual Earth and MapPoint at Microsoft. "We don't want to have them hack 
>at it. We want to support the developers."
>
>A strength of Google's new interface is its simplicity, potentially 
>bringing mapping information within the grasp of any Web author. "That's 
>why it's caught on, because it's more accessible than previous efforts," 
>said Bret Taylor, the product manager for Google Maps.
>
>Google's tools are available not only for its more conventional maps but 
>also for its recently released Google Earth software, which meshes 
>satellite photography with road maps and other data. The resulting images 
>can be annotated with directions and other data and also manipulated to 
>produce the effect of motion in a 3-D aerial view. Microsoft also plans to 
>make use of satellite data, but its interface will be based on a Web 
>browser, not separately downloaded software like Google Earth.
>
>In contrast, Yahoo executives said they were skeptical about the value of 
>satellite imagery, and the company was focusing instead on digital maps.
>
>Yahoo is hoping that groups of Web users will emerge to overlay its maps 
>with restaurant reviews and other kinds of contributions.
>
>"This is not so much about creating a virtual world, but rather helping 
>people with the real world," said Paul Levine, Yahoo's general manager for 
>local services.
>
>Although much of the early experimentation with the new interfaces has 
>been done by hobbyists, the new wave of consumer-oriented mapping services 
>is shaking up the relatively staid market for what are known as geographic 
>information systems, or G.I.S., which for more than a decade have been 
>tailored largely for business customers.
>
>"In the past there was a grain-silo approach to controlling the 
>technology," said Nathan Torkington, director of Where 2.0, a location 
>technology and mapping conference held last month in San Francisco. "Now 
>we're seeing the distribution of mapping technology."
>
>Moreover, although companies like Microsoft and MapQuest have pioneered 
>programming interfaces for maps in the past, access has largely been 
>offered on a transaction basis.
>
>For example, if a company developed a map application based on Microsoft's 
>MapPoint mapping data, it would pay Microsoft for each map lookup request 
>it generated.
>
>Mapping industry veterans said that in contrast to previous G.I.S. 
>systems, the new programming tools make mapping accessible to just about 
>any Web page designer.
>
>"To be honest, there isn't a lot new here," said Perry Evans, who founded 
>MapQuest and is now chief executive of Local Matters, a local-search 
>company based in Denver. "What's different is the accessibility and the 
>fact that the number of participants in local target advertising is growing."
>
>Google's decision to encourage experimentation or "hacks" has led to 
>widespread interest both from programmers and from the traditional G.I.S. 
>industry.
>
>"I'm incredibly excited for all kinds of reasons," said Rupert Scammell, a 
>software engineer for RSA Security, a software and consulting company, who 
>has been experimenting with the Google programming tools and has created 
>several user-interface enhancements for Google maps.
>
>"Doing this was deeply geeky until June 29, when Google reduced the 
>hacking you had to do to just three or four lines of Javascript," he said.
>
>Google's decision to court the experimenters and hobbyists is significant, 
>according to a number of Internet veterans, because this is the community 
>that has traditionally been the source of much of the Net's innovation.
>
>"It's a classic example of this thesis that hackers show us the shape of 
>the future," Mr. O'Reilly said.
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