In my last blog entry I discussed how rising gas prices have turned people to use the public transportation system at a much higher rate. This blog will be a slight continuation of this theme as I discuss the impact that the increase in gas prices has accounted for an increase in the purchase of two-wheel vehicles.

Many people are finding that the increases at the gas pump are becoming financially frustrating. To combat this, many people are finding transportation that can save them money and also allow them to commute to their destination in a timely fashion. One answer to this is a two-wheel vehicle.

From the traditional bike to the new-age Segway, people are running out and buying these vehicles to save money. Sales and use are up dramatically and people are finding many advantages to using a vehicle such as a scooter. Many of these vehicles get great gas mileage and some simply run on electric power. The Electric vehicles are also much kinder to the environment.

Provided below are a collection of different two-wheel vehicle dealerships throughout the USA. So if you are tired of paying to much money for gas in your 4-wheel vehicle consider visiting one of these dealerships and ride off in your brand new two-wheel vehicle.

• Bike Shops
• Harley-Davidson Dealership Locations
• Genuine Scooter Company Dealership Locations
• Tomos Dealership Locations
• Vespa Dealership Locations
• eGO Vehicles Dealership Locations
• Segway Dealership Locations

Popularity: 7% [?]

One of the most anticipated and most hollow panels at GeoWeb conferences of late is “Something Something Business Model”. I think the reality was best captured by the Fake Steve Coast:

The default business model of Web 2.0 has been advertising. The problem is you are largely limited to placing advertisements around maps and you can’t leverage the local or geographic content on the map to target with. So, you have to generate a massive amount of traffic to make enough money with your ads around maps. Which is difficult, since most of the clicking is on the map and you don’t get loads of page views to push ads against.

The dirty secret - it is even tough for the big guys (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) to generate big revenue with their mapping applications. The mapping applications are largely loss leaders. The scary bit is they are loss leaders and GYM control the ad inventory. Meaning they actually have a network of advertisers willing to pay to have their content shown in conjunction with their maps. This is no small feat and I would love to hear how folks like Lat 49 are fairing in their endeavors to build an ad network for maps.

Even if we do finally get advertisements on maps and a version of Adsense to go with it - are you likely or unlikely to be able to pay the bills with it? Not to say it is impossible.

Platial has stated in the past it is generating revenue (possibly even cash flow positive) and has the level of traffic (15MM unique users per month) to support an ad based business. Although where does it go (acquisition, IPO, Kleiner et al want their money back eventually)? How many other GeoWeb companies out there are able to support themselves on advertising?

What are the other alternatives? Maybe we can start with how folks pay for geo applications and content today:

GIS - I pay for licensed desktop software (sometimes a client server deployment)
Google Earth - I pay for the pro version that has extra functionality
API’s - I pay for geo type API’s when they are not used on the public web
Integrators - I’ll pay you to build a geo type mash up (sometime you have your own product to make this easier)
Data - I pay you for proprietary data that I can use in my geo application
Subscription - I pay to use your service on a recurring basis
Market places - I pay for third party content through your website and you get a cut
Buying devices - I pay for a GPS or other mapping enabled piece of hardware.

I’d argue that the majority of GeoWeb companies that are making money are doing so with one of the business models listed above. Further, I’d argue that of those most of them are doing so as integrators. Paying for licensed GIS software is the most real of the models generating over a billion in revenue, but it is not really GeoWeb outside of people paying to license Google Earth.

Selling geospatial data is another real business generating around $660 million. The companies selling this data are rarely GeoWeb companies unless you count NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas. In the data old guard the business model to sell their geospatial data is often a hot topic.

Selling API’s is a very GeoWeb method of doing business, but with the abundance of available free API’s how many people are actually paying for them? While subscription services have been big winners in other Web 2.0 spaces (Basecamp, Salesforce etc.) I can’t think of a successful geospatial subscription service (help me there must be one…).

For market places, WeoGeo has been successful in getting content providers to make their data available for sale through their service. It will be interesting to see how it scales and if a market develops, but it is one of the few GeoWeb areas where there has been business model innovation.

Interestingly, there are a myriad of business model options but nothing I’ve seen to date really pops out as a clear cut winner. Whether you are a start up or one of the big incumbents figuring out how to monetize the GeoWeb, it is going to continue to be a bur in the saddle (aka pain in the ass)…

Popularity: 11% [?]

Photos of an “invisible” tribe in Brazil are so ubiquitous that their images now fill a Google Image search for ‘uncontacted’ . The story of these “lost tribes” discovery is as interesting as the images themselves, including the discovery of their location with Google Earth.

On Finder! you can find highly detailed census information about the Brazilian populations surrounding the “lost tribes”. The Brazilian demographic data shows, for example, the population surrounding the “lost tribes” has grown faster than anywhere else in the state:

Finder! also has numerous demographic and housing data from 2000 covering all of Brazil as well as cell phone ownership and employment data from 2005, and roadways throughout South America.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Data Transfer Solutions (DTS) developed an application for the Texas Forest service called the Texas Wildfire Data Browser. The application provides viewing for wildfire threats, fuel hazards and fire locations.

In light of the Iowa flooding, MSNBC posted an interactive map allowing users to track flooding locations in the Midwest. The majority of the points on the map give the levels of historical rivers and the others even link to specified news areas.

Google Earth’s text gets a make-over with a new option to view KML texts on the map. Designed by Sergey Devytakov, the new tool, called Labels, allows the specification of font changes, shadows and outlines and choice of icon, etc.

Maps and texts combine through Kvisu.com. This unique search engine takes text based results and aligns them with a surface map using visualized keywords.

Zimbabwe gets on the map. Google Maps has been used to track the political campaign of Morgan Tsvangirai and the unfortunate terror occurring in the country.

Popularity: 11% [?]