Quote:
Originally Posted by Amie  And those people who snap photos for GE don't think that the world-famous sites and streets in Nepal and Thailand are photo-worthy?  |
Well, sure! Just not as important as Akron, Ohio!
It seems that Google Earth uses TeleAtlas maps and photos, which many, many, many companies also use for urban planning and construction research -- which makes a lot of sense that they'd be putting more importance on high-resolution photos of large, urban areas rather than rural or foreign areas. They don't take photos
for Google -- they take photos, and many companies, including Google, use them in their products and research.
Google really doesn't produce
anything. They really have no products or content other than software -- and most of their software (AdSense, Google Earth, their search engine) is simply "aggregation" software. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Google doesn't make any data -- they just write the software that parses data in nifty ways, and all that data usually comes from somewhere else (ie, non-Google websites, non-Google satellite photography, non-Google advertisements, etc.).
Google just grabs the data from elsewhere and presents it in nifty packages in just about 100% of their products.