Google Earth Connects with Communities

Google Earth was well represented at the American Geophysics Union meeting in San Francisco (Dec 11-15) along with a gathering of virtual globe scientists. Michael T. Jones, Google Earth’s Chief Technology Officer, remarked on the impressive array of scientific studies that are using Google Earth and other spinning globe technologies (e.g., NASA’s World Wind, Microsoft’s Virtual Globe, ESRI’s ArcGeoExplorer). He stated that a major challenge for the software vendors was to understand better who the communities are that are using these digital earth technologies and what will be their requirements in the future as they continue to harness these tools for their communities. Google has joined the ISDE5 as a Golden Sponsor, in part, to better understand these questions and to help promote increased communications amongst the user communities. Mr. Jones was quick to point out that while Google Earth enjoys a healthy market share in the Digital Earth community, he feels that all of the major vendors need to address the collaborative issues of our science and citizen communities if we are to look towards a better future.