Just two years after Google and Microsoft launched
online mapping sites that introduced remote sensing imagery to the
masses via their online mapping sites, all sectors of the geospatial
industry are acknowledging the positive impact these search engines are
having on the commercial satellite imaging business.
Early concerns that image availability at little or no cost on Google
Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth would undercut the market for satellite
image data have been replaced with a new sense of confidence and
excitement. Most value-added resellers—firms on the front lines of
imagery sales—say the online sites actually are helping by introducing
satellite images to consumers and industries that may not have been
reached otherwise.
GeoEye (www.geoeye.com)
and DigitalGlobe (www.digitalglobe.com)
are equally optimistic about the online mapping phenomenon. Although
neither company would comment on the volume or value of data sales to
the search engines, a quick tour of the Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!
sites reveals large quantities of recently acquired high-
resolution commercial satellite imagery.
“Before the search engines launched, few people in the general public
knew much about satellite imagery and how it could be used,” explains
Mark Brender, GeoEye vice president of Corporate Communications and
Marketing. “Now the online sites are generating tremendous awareness
regarding the value of satellite imagery among people everywhere in the
world, and that is diversifying and expanding our customer base. What
the hit television show ‘Dancing with the Stars’ has done for ballroom
dancing, the search engines have done for satellite imaging.”
DigitalGlobe reports a similar experience.
“There hasn’t been any negative impact,” says Chuck Herring, the
company’s director of Corporate Communications. “Online mapping has
done more for the satellite imagery industry than had been
accomplished in the past three or four years. The planning we’re
doing right now is being dictated by what’s occurring in the online
mapping market.”
Looking beyond the revenues from pixels and images, GeoEye’s Brender
sees the search engines finally bringing the concept of commercial
Earth observation to fruition. For years, the commercial market for
satellite imagery in the United States and around the world has been
underwritten by government investments in data and satellites. But
with the force multipliers of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo in effect,
it may only be a matter of time before commercial imagery sales grow
to reflect this increased awareness.
“A growing and diversifying commercial base is exactly what this—or
any—industry needs to spur investment from the private sector,” says
Brender. “That’s another benefit we expect will result from sales to
search engines.”
Online Images Market to New Clients
The online mapping portals have essentially put satellite imagery
catalogs on every desktop computer, according to John Fairs, GIS
manager of Golder Associates (www.golder.com),
an international geotechnical engineering firm based in Canada.
Being able to show an existing or potential client an actual image
of their project area is a great way to sell the client on the
advantages of using remote sensing data—even if the image they see
online isn’t the exact one ultimately purchased for the project.
“We use [online mapping] to show our clients what imagery is
available and where it can be purchased,” explains Fairs. “This is a
valuable resource, especially with our international clients working
in parts of the world where we might not otherwise have sample
imagery to show them.”
Even outside the confines of a sales call,
online mapping seems to be working well as a marketing tool.
According to DigitalGlobe, image sales have picked up lately in the
real estate and insurance sectors, which Herring attributes to
Internet applications built on top of the Google and Microsoft
search engines serving information to those markets. The value-added
community has seen similar increases in business from new clients.
“Imagery online has been waking people up, especially in small
municipalities,” claims Jean Le Tellier, vice president of Géoid
Inc. (www.geoid.ca)
in Quebec, Canada. “Small cities may not have known about satellite
imagery or couldn’t afford it in the past, but suddenly they are
interested in having applications developed with it. Online mapping
is opening doors.”
The resellers are quick to point out that the uses of online imagery
in most cases are limited to visualization purposes early in a
project or in the sales cycle and rarely replace an actual purchase
of imagery for use as a central element in an application. They cite
the lack of metadata accompanying the images online as the primary
reason that image data sales haven’t been undercut by the search
engines.
“Without metadata, you don’t know how accurate the [online] imagery
is or when it was acquired,” says Golder’s Fairs. “You need this and
other metadata to use satellite imagery in many applications.
Therefore, you still have to buy it.”
The satellite operators and imagery resellers agree the new
businesses being introduced to Earth observation technology are
boosting sales. But new clientele might not be the only source of
added revenue for the imagery providers. A large number of firms,
some of them traditional users of geospatial technology, are
developing commercial applications on Google Earth and Microsoft
Virtual Earth, and these will have an impact as well.
CARTASITE (www.cartasite.com),
a vehicle and asset tracking firm based in Denver, is one example.
For several of its clients, CARTASITE has created Global Positioning
System (GPS)-based tracking services that allow fleet operators to
see the real-time locations of their vehicles on vector-overlaid
imagery from Google and Microsoft. Compared with pure vector maps,
the visual context of the imagery lets the fleet managers gain much
more precise knowledge of where their trucks are.
“We use the satellite imagery on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis from
Microsoft and Google,” says CARTASITE President David Armitage. “We
couldn’t have gotten the economies of scale for this application if
we had to buy the imagery at full price.”
Armitage predicts this transaction-based service model will become a
large—and steady—source of income for the satellite operators. “The
demand will come from companies like mine for Microsoft, Google and
Yahoo to constantly deliver newer, more complete and higher
resolution imagery to the global market,” he says. “Considering the
competition that already exists among [the three major online site],
this has got to be a bonanza for image providers.”
Ed Jurkevics, principal analyst for Arlington, Va.-based Chesapeake
Analytics Corp. (www.chesanal.com),
agrees that this might be the most potent of all the new revenue
streams coming from the online mapping phenomenon. “The demand for
updated and better imagery is constant,” he warns. “I hope the
online firms know what they’re getting themselves into.”
Cause for Concern?
Euphoria about the Internet bringing imagery to the masses is
tempered by a few lingering concerns. Several long-time
professionals in remote sensing related industries voiced
trepidation that online mapping might be setting Earth observation
technology up for another oversell, as happened in the late 1980s.
“The online sites are so easy to use,” says Tim Hill, director of
Regional Practice Operations for CH2M Hill (www.ch2m.com),
Englewood, Colo. “The pressure is really on the vendors to make
their products easier and faster to buy, or the industry runs the
risk of disappointing those potential new users whose first
experience with imagery was with one of the online sites.”
Another potential stumbling block for new customers is the issue of
metadata, or lack of metadata. First-time users may not realize that
the extraordinary spatial and spectral information that can be
extracted from satellite imagery won’t be available to them from the
online images. To gain the full value of remotely sensed data, they
will have to buy actual image products from a satellite operator or
their resellers.
“It’s up to the GIS organizations and VARs to educate new users on
the differences between using imagery for visualization and actual
information extraction,” explains Shawana Johnson, president of
Strongsville, Ohio-based Global Marketing Insights (www.globalinsights.com).
“People who need imagery that is validated and verified will have to
buy it.”
Steve Bedsole, president of ImageMap USA (www.geoenvirodata.com),
Bessemer, Ala., voiced an even stronger fear: “I’m concerned there
are a lot of customers who mistakenly think they can solve their
data needs with pretty pictures on Google,” he says. “What’s going
to happen when someone makes a huge costly mistake, perhaps a
life-or-death decision, based on data they didn’t realize was out of
date?”
Legal liability is a legitimate concern that must be addressed in
the world of online imagery, especially for vendors providing
imagery and related data to those sites that provide turn-by-turn
driving instructions, according to Kevin Pomfret, who practices
spatial law for Cantor Arkema P.C. (www.cantorarkema.com),
Richmond, Va.
“If someone injures a third party as a result of incorrect driving
instructions from a site with imagery, the third party’s lawyer will
bring a suit against all parties involved, even if ultimately the
imagery proves accurate,” explains Pomfret.
Online Sites Rely on Partnerships
The online mapping sites are aware of the positive impact they’re
having on the satellite imagery business, and they expect the two
industries to progress in tandem as their respective technologies
and customer demands evolve and influence one another.
“As technology improves in the online mapping industry, demand for
the best satellite imaging available will increase,” predicts Alex
Daley, Microsoft Virtual Earth’s lead marketing product manager.
“Users will demand that imagery be both more up to date and more
detailed, as well as provide novel ways of visualizing an area
beyond the bird’s-eye imagery.”
Microsoft and Yahoo! see satellite and aerial imagery filling an
important niche in the unique online experience of local search that
transports the end user virtually into the city, neighborhood or
street where they seek information. Beyond these experiences, which
are primarily geared toward consumers, the online sites understand
there’s tremendous opportunity for their technology to tap into
professional users in commercial applications.
Says Yahoo! Maps Product Manager Michael Lawless, “Exposure to
satellite and aerial imagery has created an awareness that wasn’t
really there previously, and that should drive both additional
consumer adoption for us, as well as perhaps a new growth stage in
the professional and enterprise space as developers begin to build
up their needs for more rigorous professional data and services.”
Although the revenues from consumer applications will be generated
for the search engine operators through advertising dollars, each
company also will have commercial revenue coming in from licensing
arrangements with its business partners. These partners will develop
the business-to-business applications targeting professional end
users. Already, these opportunities have attracted firms from inside
and outside the traditional geospatial industry to sign on as
partners to the search engine operators.
“Our Google Enterprise Professional partners working with Google
Earth and other Google geospatial products all have significant
experience in the geospatial arena,” relates Kevin Smith, who
manages the Google Enterprise Partner Program. “Our partners provide
integration and consulting services and develop applications around
our products to bring added value to customers and deployments.”
Although the three major online mapping providers are mega
corporations with diverse business interests, they seem to have
clear visions of their relationships to the geospatial industry in
general and the satellite imaging business in particular. All three
appear content to let their business partners create the
applications that may ultimately provide the greatest source of
growth for all parties involved.
The reliance on partners extends to the collection of image data for
the sites as well. Asked if there were plans to launch their own
imaging satellites in the future, Microsoft and Yahoo provided
similar answers, best summed up by Microsoft’s Bill Gail: “Microsoft
doesn’t intend to be in the satellite imaging business as long as
there are others who can do it well.”
