Sky Diving Movie

Rubber Bracelet

The clickable, draggable part of Google maps is a good idea, but as was pointed out, it’s not a Google invention. Google maps is integrated with databases of locations of addresses and businesses, but it’s basically the same kind of thing that Yahoo! maps offers, also. So I don’t see any real innovation coming from Google. And it goes without saying that my opinion is in no way biased by the fact that I was chewed up and spit out by Google’s interview process.

Samuel,
The true value of GIS comes from the integration of different data sources.

This information may be geographically based like the data that terra server and delorme sell (which are generated by government agencies), tabular like business addresses, us census or crime statistics (still government generated), or…

Perhaps drawn from widely held resources available over the internet, rectified to a common geographic standard and displayed interactively…

That is where Google comes in, and… would this be EVIL!? Definately not, its just the google way.

Sigh… I have to go complete some docs on a new sop for a change control process to comply with new reporting standards…

Gary,

I think GIS is wonderful, but I don’t think that it’s true that Google is implementing a project that up to this point was only attempted by government agencies. Microsoft’s TerraServer has been on-line since June 1998, and I’ve had vector-based maps on my computer since 1991, when I bought DeLorme’s Street Atlas USA CD-ROM. MapQuest has been on the web since 1996. GoogleMaps does not seem to be a technical achievement—if there’s any real technical innovation that would be in Keyhole, the company that Google bought which put aerial photography and vector-based maps together.

Thanks very much for those two interesting articles!

–Sam Lipoff

Christian and “dc”: Why don’t I apply for a job at Google? My former students are all there and they know everything that I know! So why should I have to go into work every day week after week? The whole point of teaching the next generation is so that I can have some time to relax and enjoy. If my old students were to get stuck on a problem and needed my advice of course I make myself available to them. Ditto for any of my old classmates who are at Google. I still solve a lot of SQL puzzles for my working friends.

I think it’s a terrible idea to have the smartest people concentrated in a few companies. Just in case Google becomes a target of terrorism, I suggest that Googlers dig themselves an underground shelter. In the true spirit of Dr. Strangelove, they would also designate 10 … for every … to bring into the shelter.

hey phil: why dont you work at google — not for the $, for fun. you may find it quite enjoyable. best place i have ever seen.

Samuel,

Take Google maps for example…

Google is implementing a project that up to this point was only attempted by government agencies.

Why haven’t other prvate sector companies pursued this at length? For all of the reasons that you list, eventually the service just doesn’t meet the bottom line.

I was extremely lucky to get entry into IT through Geographic Information Systems. A well funded government agency was willing to invest millions of dollars, primarily to improve the safety of the users of public highway systems. In the eight years that I worked with the technology I was able to expand into imagery, 3-d topo, trip routing, dynamic segmentation (display of live tabular data) and cartographic publishing.

No private company could have justified the investment, but as we progressed we moved from integrating data, to departments, to agencies… and towards the goal of ‘Societal GIS’. I remember getting blown away by a Jack Dangermond speech in the mid nineties. He laid out the Societal benefits of an integrated geographic information system.

I did my bit to work within the constraints of government before I bailed to the private sector (just dry database work, no tasty mapping).
I cannot express my elation that a company as dynamic and well funded as Google has gotten the gis bug.

Read these articles, maybe you will to:

http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/users/pbcote/enr-100/outline.htm

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/technology/gis/ma03022.htm

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Google is an engineering-led company. I think that they are precisely a marketing led company now. Take Google Maps as an example. Various companies have been putting US map data and route finding algorithms on the web for many years. Microsoft has had the Terra Server with aerial photographs of the entire US on-line for years as well (in many areas which much higher quality than those on Google Maps). Google bought Keyhole, another company that had previously strung together satellite maps. The innovative ideas were to put the vector maps and satellite maps together (which is of questionable utility) and to improve (marginally) the interface to searching and navigating the maps. Only a very wealthy company could do this (due to the high price for buying a company with all those satellite maps and licensing the vector map data) and only a company that’s a media darling and a marketing dynamo could bank on the coat-tails effect to make their service that’s only a marginal improvement over existing services, immediately so popular. I think that there are lots of great things about Google, and they certainly do have an interesting corporate culture. But their marketing savvy, and the sycophantic attitude of the popular press, are key components to why some of their new services are very popular.