Starting January I believe, Google Maps has started charging businesses for using their Google Maps API service. The first 25,000 map hits in a day are free and every succeeding 1,000 hits get charged $4.
Who does this effect the most? Real estate companies and travel services. Is this good or bad? Well that is a debate on its own where I have multiple standpoints. Sure, companies are going to have to start paying, which might drive up costs, but this may indeed be less significant that one worries about. Google claims that adding a charge after 25,000 hits really only affects less than 1% of their users. At the same time, Google can use the revenues to further develop their platform to an even better GIS tool.
But the question comes in hand, what can businesses do to avoid some of these costs, or at least ones that don't have to resources to spare such a cost. There are numerous open source GIS features out there. Oh, maybe an opportunity to increase the opportunities for entry level GIS applicants.
Incorporating more advanced GIS concepts into businesses has a big drawback, many have little familiarity with the subject, and the same goes with many clients.
Let this perhaps be an opportunity for GIS users to begin blogging about simple open source GIS concepts to further educate ourselves.
Link to article on Google use charges: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15523050
No comments:
Post a Comment