The View from Google Earth

location based services

May 1, 2006
By: Mary Jo Wagner
Geospatial Solutions
Pages 1 2 3 4 5

Mary Jo Wagner (MW): What prompted you to create Google Earth (GE), and what were/are its objectives?
Michael Jones (MJ): In the very beginning, a lot of us who built Google Earth had worked on similar types of applications in the military space. Although the applications were quite beneficial for many government agencies, an overall obstacle was the data was always classified. We thought it would be great if everyday people could use this spatial knowledge to make better decisions. With PCs becoming more powerful and networks getting better, we felt that we could actually make the idea work. So we set out to build an Earth browser to help people better understand their planet. As we were still Keyhole at the time, we necessarily pursued that with more of a commercial goal. Now that we're Google, we're able to also aim for that all-humans-understand-their-planet approach more directly. We're excited about that. Becoming Google Earth hasn't really changed our focus, but it's allowed us to admit what we really wanted to do in the first place.
MW: So it sounds like the primary objective was to bring a sense of place to the masses.
Michael Jones, CTO, Google Earth MJ: That's right. There are a lot of reasons for that. Part of that is commercial and that there is value in that, but some of it is philosophical in that we all make really good decisions about what is close to us. We make fewer good decisions about people across the country and about people on the other side of the world. I think much of that is because it's really hard to take to heart the things you can't see and don't know. We thought that if you could really see the world and understand it, you'd develop a little bit more wisdom about culture. World travelers, for example, have a bit broader view on the world than people who always stay home. With Google Earth, we have a chance to let the world in on the secret.
At Google, our mission is to organize the world's information. It turns out that some of that information is hard to understand on a Web page, but it's easy to understand on a map. So if we're going to show you where all of the Starbucks are, having a picture of where you are and the Starbucks locations is important, and it will be a very different experience seeing it on a real-world map. That's a great opportunity for us.
MW: When you launched the service last June, did you expect the enormous positive response it has received and continues to receive?