Comments on: Spatial Is Special – There’s a (M)App for That

By: Peter Batty

Peter Batty — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:33:35 +0000

Oops, can’t edit the previous comment. Just listing to Joe and Adena and I agree that users don’t know or care who provides the data, they just think of it as being part of the application from Google or Microsoft or whoever. BUT if they get lost regularly using Google (or whoever), then they do care, and that’s when they may try another system.

By: Peter Batty

Peter Batty — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:27:41 +0000

Hi Paul, I don’t think my position is quite as black and white as you make it sound here. Both data and application are important, I don’t think people will choose based on one or the other for most geo applications. But if the data becomes so bad that the system regularly gets you lost, then no matter how many whizz bang features the application has, you are likely to give up on using it (assuming that there are other alternatives at a similar price point that don’t get you lost regularly). If the data is “good enough” then additional application features become more important. I don’t think we’ll see for a few months what the impact of the Google data change will be, and whether they will lose users because of it.

By: Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne

Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:10:20 +0000

One of the things I believe gets missed in all of these discussions is that we are inundated with remotely sensed data, but have very little information on things such as per-parcel impervious or tree canopy. It’s information that really helps us make better decisions. I see more value added projects are popping up in the remote sensing industry (e.g. http://www10.giscafe.com/nbc/articles/view_article.php?articleid=680511). No longer do people just want the data (imagery or LiDAR) they want information.