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I briefly interviewed Rob Shanks, president and CEO of GlobeXplorer, about how his
company is approaching the fray to offer maps and imagery to a consumer
market.For those not following this closely, Google and Microsoft have
announced enhancements to their existing offerings that include
imagery; there is no word yet from Yahoo, MapQuest or others on their
plans to include imagery.GlobeXplorer was an early player in this
space as the supplier of imagery to MapQuest's website.That feature
was popular, prompting GlobeXplorer to switch to a subscription model
for delivery, instead of the "free to all comers" model originally
offered.Since the original agreement with MapQuest, GlobeXplorer was
acquired by Stewart Information Services Corporation and operates as a
business unit of the Stewart Real Estate Information group.
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Primary
user interface of GlobeXplorer showing map overlay window.Source:
GlobeXplorer.(Click
for larger image)
What's
GlobeXplorer's take on the latest salvos
from the major search engine players? "The search engines are reacting
to each
other," said Shanks."We provided a consumer service for three years
with MapQuest and, at the end of that contract, we chose a business
model where
consumers were asked to subscribe (pay) if they wanted to see detailed
content."
For almost
two years since, GlobeXplorer has operated
a very popular consumer
portal
for this purpose.This site currently serves up to two million maps and
images
per day, and is growing rapidly.
GlobeXplorer
had previously offered business to
business web services, and during the same period of time that
GlobeXplorer was
building its consumer business based on a subscription service, Keyhole
debuted
its own product.With GlobeXplorer engaged at Stewart, Google
subsequently acquired
Keyhole and its imagery delivery technology now powers the
"Satellite" button in Google Maps.
Shanks described
what he
calls a "patchwork of content" offered by the current search engines.
"The content that you are seeing is very limited, but it is going to
get
better," he said.
Even though GlobeXplorer does not proclaim any relationship with Google
or
Microsoft, Shanks is encouraged by market conditions."Google has
raised
awareness," he noted, and "subscriptions to GlobeXplorer products
have increased robustly since the Google announcement."
GlobeXplorer sees that it has four competitive advantages.
- It has experience providing
imagery and map data at very high volumes
on the Internet, with expertise in both 2D and 3D applications.
- It serves as the largest an
aggregator of commercial imagery data, as
well as other remotely sensed data sources and ancillary map data
overlays onto images (e.g.flood zones, land information dataparcel
data, etc.) See image above - note the integration of MapQuest street
map and DigitalGlobe image data onto a single map view.
- GlobeXplorer developed an API as
a key part of its original offering.
The API toolkit facilitates a multi-layer, multi-source development
process (e.g.MapQuest was based on the GlobeXplorer API; the
GlobeXplorer API also supports WMS).GlobeXplorer's fundamental
offering
is an application; a programmer's interface, such that
businesses can dynamically access GlobeXplorer image, map overlay and
database information directly inside their own Internet-enabled
applications, devices and workflows.This core API is offered in
three versions - HTTP, SOAP and WMS.This allows businesses to
develop products within their own environments and workflows,
enabling faster and more robust business and consumer products to be
produced.
- GlobeXplorer's experience and
market leadership in the business to
business space (real estate, insurance, engineering, telecom/utilities,
etc.) creates a compelling case to use their broad product
offering.As the large search portals devise ways of making money
off geographic or "local" searching, this experience and product range
is valuable.
So, Shanks believes the company is
well positioned in this
market and already knows how to make money at it, something the big
search
engines are working diligently to figure out.And he believes the
company's
strength as an aggregator and data
distributor
will offer significant benefits over other players.Another attractive
part of
the GlobeXplorer package is a robust metering system for tracking
content that
automates the billing process and pays royalties accordingly to usage
of each
supplier's content.
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Top
image shows a parcel map from the San Francisco Property Analyst
website.Bottom image shows an assessed
property map from the same website.Source:
GlobeXplorer.(Click either for larger image)
With GlobeXplorer so well
positioned,
why haven't we seen any announcements about deals with the major search
companies? Shanks would not comment on relationships with any of the
aforementioned companies except to say "please stay tuned."
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