Mashups and New Advertising Models

The explosion of "mashups" has truly been remarkable. API's from Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo and ESRI - have enabled a smorgasbord of new web sites and helpful user tools to be developed in record time. Great sites such as www.weatherbonk.com took this to a new level - by integrating various types of data from a variety of sources into one easy to use tool. Weather data and outdoor web cameras are one example - where two types of data that have geographic relevance live side by side. Other mashups are emerging - such as homes for sale mashed with crime data mashed with school information.
All of this is great. But as was the case with social networks - the real trick and challenge will be trying to monetize all of these highly useful products. That said - and in light of today's brutal advertising market - it seems like mashups should be the place where new revenue models can be born and thrive. New players such LAT49 (www.lat49.com) and old stalwarts such as Navteq (www.navteq.com) are forging into the area of on map sponsorships. Ths allows advertisers the ability to add logos (think Dunkin Donuts locations for example) to an interactive map. This can be very handy for someone traveling perhaps - and offers up the chance for to provide contextually relevant ad content...
The earliest example of this was the McTraffic product that was innovated for the FOX TV web sites. That product was the #1 revenue generator for The FOX TV Web Group for two years running. An example of that product can be found at http://www.myfoxdfw.com/subindex/traffic.
Great thing about all of this is that it is portable to the new generation of location based mobile devices.....
So start making $$$!

Weather Technolgy and Broadcasters - Watch Out

The weather technology space continues to change at a rapid pace. "Traditional" vendors such as Accu Weather, Weather Central, Baron's, and WSI and now being nipped on by nimble players such as Weather Underground and WDT - along with the big boys such as Google and Microsoft. The platforms such as Google Earth and Virtual Earth get better and better - offering more flexibility and better access to content via the web. This means that the "big boys" might soon offer a viable broadcaster platform - by which broadcasters can produce traditional weather segments - without relying on weather companies to supply the data. Rather - they are able to access data via the assortment of free feeds that are now available via formats such as XML and KML.
So if you are one of those "traditional" players - watch your rear view mirror.
The only question that I have for Google and Microsoft is - why bother with the broadcast market? It is a dying model - headed in the wrong direction. That said - everyone always wants to be on TV at some point in their lives - so there you go.

Crazy Weather

Lots of debate these days on "Global Warming" vs. global cooling. Lots of data on both sides of the debate. Discouraging that the radical on both sides of the debate seem to be getting the majority of the press. I suspect that somewhere in the middle is the reality.
Difficult for me to accept NOAA reports - when in fact - they have so much funding riding on the assumption that Global Warming is real...