Commercializing the World, Google Earth Style The Ways and the Means to Your World Nicholas Carlson
The Ways and the Means to Your World
So is there an economic incentive to create content for Google?
Tim Hibbard thinks so. He used Google Maps APIs (application programming interfaces) to place a map on his site that plots his exact location and speed.
Located on the site is a link allowing visitors to download a .kml file if they're interested in watching him move about Lawrence, Kansas.
It's a marketing stunt for Hibbard's company, EnGraph, which sells GPS- enabled transportation equipment. And because of content EnGraph created for Google Earth, the business is growing.
Marketing stunts that lead to potential business are one thing. But Google Earth provides a way for those interested in money-making using geography to do so.
EarthBooker.com's .kml file includes 80,000 hotels around the world — with pictures in some cases. And in the upper-left hand corner of the application is advertised a chance to win one of the five iPods if you "Book Now."
And then there are the companies creating a means to make Google's world your own.
One is Google, which bought @last software and SketchUp, which make 3-D modeling software.
Another is Bentley Systems, a software firm specializing in 3-D computer aided design (CAD) applications for engineers and architects. It developed a plug-in for Microstation, its most popular product, to enable users to publish their 3-D designs in Google Earth.
Bentley Global Marketing Director Joe Croser told internetnews.com that Google Earth "has got huge value as a presentation and evaluation tool."
Croser said that's because it saves the "wasted time and money" people use to "recreate information rather than reusing it."
All of this doesn't necessarily mean there will be AdWords next to every place mark in Google Earth.
But it might mean that John Hanke's planet-sized idea of turning Google Earth into a mirror world might not be too out of this world.
Google could monetize Google Earth by advertising around user-generated content.
And thanks to the @last acquisition and Google SketchUp, the door is wide open for the users to create a 3D world to browse from Google Earth.
Now maybe all this business talk has you thinking that doesn't seem like too big of a deal.
If so, think about this way.
Aren't you a world browser already? Aren't your senses reading the "source codes" of light and energy around you all the time?
You are. But you can't move around the world at the speed of broadband; Google Earth can.
What's a mirror world? Be warned. It's a big idea.
It's the "collapse of time and space," said @last founder and fellow true believer, Brad Schell.
