There are indeed many other services available which offer geographic data in some shape or form (for example, ERSI’s ArcData Online program to be found at www.Esri.com), but as these are not mapping or routing based applications they fall outside the scope of this paper and will therefore not be addressed.
Intranet map and route based services are also possible for companies wishing to design and implement applications that meet the specific needs of their organisation. Such services can also be extended to serve the needs of their customers or partners through establishing Extranet capabilities.
End users are today confronted with a range of Internet mapping and routing services. The choice of which service to use is typically driven by:

1. Cost of Service: The online community represents a small, but rapidly growing, percentage of the critical mass and as such has considerable power. This power has been used to quickly establish a marginal, if not free, expectation of the cost of any online service. However, many users fail to realise that although they believe they are receiving a genuinely free service that they are in fact paying dearly with their time and attention rather than cash (or any other form of currency). Online advertising has quickly established itself as the predominant model used to finance most web services (global advertising revenues were estimated at $1.1BUS in 1997, Jupiter Communications Adspend). As such, it is in the service providers interest to lengthen the amount of time an end user spends accessing their web site. This motive conflicts with most users desire to spend less time on the web accessing difficult to find and slow to use sites. Therefore, end users must realise that before they receive better quality services that they will have to begin financing these services through more traditional payment methods. This will in turn provide sound reasons for providers to steer away from advertising as their sole source of online revenue. Of course, the establishment of an acceptable payment mechanism may in fact be introduced by the providers first, which is indeed the case when looking to the successful ISP America Online and it will no doubt be in Microsoft’s best interest if they continue to establish critical market share on the Internet.
2. Another unique aspect regarding the cost of any online information service is that the content has to be virtually given away before it can be purchased. This has largely to do with the fact that electronic information cannot be shown without first giving it away (or portions of it). Either way, when a user pays for information (either with funds or through time) they are always paying for the last piece of information they received, not the next piece of information they are going to get. This is completely in contrast to what occurs when purchasing traditional goods. End users must also quickly adapt, and respect, this new online payment paradigm.
3. Cost of Internet Access: Unlike the US, the cost to actually get online is still quite prohibitive in most countries. However, this is seen as only a temporary barrier as Internet access is expected to rapidly approach marginal rates as more consumers and businesses adopt Internet based services.
4. Quality of Service: The quality of any online service varies significantly and end users tend to remain loyal to those services from which they receive consistent results. Many believe that services will not improve until a viable commerce system, together with a range of suitable payment options, are put in place. Until such a time, content of any real value will tend to stay with other media, such as printed publications, which have well established distribution models that support publishers and their respective suppliers.
5. The dilemma of accessing quality online services can be compared with food. You can always find food which is cheap, fast or delicious, but it is difficult to find all three simultaneously. For instance, you may find cheap fast food, but it may not necessarily be delicious. You may also find good food fast, but it may not necessarily be cheap. Of course, you can always get cheap good food, but it won’t be fast because you’ll be cooking it yourself! Much of this applies to online information as well.
6. Accessibility and Branding: Making users aware of Internet based services is indeed a difficult task. Most first time users tend to locate services via the major portal sites (such as Yahoo! and Infoseek). The Internet is ‘intangible’ and often the only aspect of any service which a user can identify with is the actual brand associated with that particular service.

ISSUES FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS

Service providers offering Internet based mapping and routing services are effectively online publishers and are such concerned with integrating all relevant components in a way which will hopefully lead to a successful and profitable service.
The success (or value) of any online service, leading ultimately to an end user re-visiting a particular site, primarily depends upon:

1. The value in the actual transaction: That is the quality, reliability, consistency and completeness of all components integrated within the service.
2. The value in the relationship: The relationship, established between the service provider and the end user, must be packaged in a way that the end user instantly recognises and appreciates. It is true that existing publishers across other mediums are able to benefit from prior established branding when migrating online. However, the Internet also provides tremendous opportunities for new web-specific brands to quickly develop rapport. For example, MapQuest was a brand virtually unheard of 3 years ago and is now quickly becoming a ‘household name’.

Service providers must carefully determine how the established value of their mapping and routing service is to be recognised; or put simply, how their service is to be paid for. There are four frequently used commercial models used to finance Internet services:

1. Attention Payment: A media buyer placing advertisements is today reported to have 23 forms of media from which to choose when placing advertising. Although the Internet is now considered to be one of the 23 options, it cannot claim to generate anywhere near the same levels of exposure, and therefore revenue, as say radio, newspapers or television. Even though online banners (financed typically through an amount per 1,000 page impressions) are still the most commonly used revenue bearing tool, very few publishers (let alone map and route service providers) can generate the traffic required to make such a model profitable. Clearly, other more suitable online models are desperately required.
2. User Payment: Whether through micro-payments or a subscription based system, pay per use is today rarely adopted as a successful model primarily because there is still a lack of secure, wide-spread online payment platforms. This will hopefully change when such systems are instigated.
3. Marginal Payment: Many believe a transaction based system is the future ‘killer app’ in web based commercial arrangements. Future scenarios are akin to direct marketing whereby a service provider allows advertisers free space for a ‘cut’ of any transaction that may be achieved as a result of that advertisement. For instance, if a hotel displays its location on a map and this in turn results in a reservation being made, then the provider receives a percentage of the transaction. Such possibilities will become more likely once ecommerce is accepted and links from ‘advertising points’ to various electronic storefronts are commonplace.
4. Indirect Payment: Such applications are established under the umbrella of government sponsorship schemes OR intended to help promote a particular good or service through displaying the locations of dealers within a chain or network.

ISSUES FOR TECHOLOGY PROVIDERS

Technology providers, who could of course be also the providers of content and of the actual service, are faced with difficult decisions in a world of rapidly changing technology. As with most IT (Information Technology) architectures, providers of mapping and routing technology may chose from a range of tiered options, each generation with progressively more added value.
In the case of regular Internet browsing the client sends requests to an Internet server. When a request has reached that server (through TCP/IP) the server interprets the request and proceeds to locate the required information on its local drive. When the information is found, the result is sent back to the client and appears within the client’s browser. In this case the information is sent through as HTML pages.
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is somewhat the standard data format used for textual documents on the www. HTML is limited in the range of possible mapping and routing functionality and is restricted to straight text and image results. GIF and JPEG are the most common image formats and can be displayed by all standard browsers. HTML is platform independent and therefore suitable for Internet exchange.
Recently, several variations of HTML have been released which enable Internet protocols to be incorporated in handheld devices. HDML (Handheld Device Markup Language) is one such example. HDML can enable handheld (including GSM) devices to link to mobile networks and micro Internet browesrs. HDML may soon be replaced by a new standard called WML (Wireless Markup Language) or by a compact version of HTML called ‘Compact HTML’. Clearly, it will not be long before Internet mapping and routing services are delivered to handheld devices and offer real benefits in personal geographic based location.
Java, developed by Sun Microsystems, offers technology providers two key advantages: it is intrinsically portable and has inbuilt networking capabilities. Java is able to extend the functionality of any Internet based service and is now virtually and industry standard for providers of mapping and routing technology.
If technology providers prefer not to ‘re-invent the wheel’, designing services directly using available development environments, then they are able to select pre-developed mapping and routing functionality from a range of GIS Software Providers (such as www.Esri.com, www.mapguide.com or www.mapinfo.com) or Internet Map Service Providers (such as www.mapquest.com, www.infonow.com, www.vicinity.com or www.and.nl)

ISSUES FOR CONTENT PROVIDERS

Online mapping and routing services require a wide range of information sources from which to create a suitable application. The following list, which is by no way exhaustive, overviews the type of content typically found within these services:

• Digital maps
• Traffic information
• Points of interest (including directory information)
• News, weather and recreational information

The future world of electronic content and commerce is not what most owners of intellectual property have been planing, contracting, and spending vast amounts of capital in securing rights for.
Other than the lack of effective business models (discussed earlier when considering issues for online service providers) the actual value of electronic content, and how to receive recognition for this value, is the primary consideration for all holders of intellectual property when licensing their data online.
Unlike traditional forms of content, electronic content is not a scarce resource. For example, 10,000 un-sold maps sitting in a warehouse are considered an asset because they are the last remaining titles of a 50,000 unit edition. As such, these remaining maps are a scarce finite resource and, as basic economic principals state, will hold their value given no change in demand. This is not the case for electronic information which, as a potentially infinite resource, can run the risk of not remaining scarce and therefore experience a dramatic decrease in value when distributed widely. This is the major dilemma electronic content providers face today when confronted with the massive distribution power of the Internet.
If content providers continue to focus upon the actual information they supply in licensing their data online then they risk running into a limited revenue stream as information approaches marginal commodity rates. Rather, content providers must study the context under which their data is distributed and used online. It is in understanding this context, not the actual content, that providers of information will find successful models under which to license their data. More often than not, this means locking into the actual transaction which occurs when users access Internet based services. Only through the establishment of transaction based licensing will content providers ensure that they also benefit from future Internet growth.

CONCLUSION

This paper proposes that, contrary to popular belief, a connected world may not result in society being less locationally dependent and will perhaps lead to a significant increase in the transportation of people, goods and services. The challenge is therefore to dtermine how to use the benefits of such a connected world to develop tools that will assist in managing the increase of physical traffic.
There are indeed many critical considerations that the service, technology and content providers must address when delivering effective Internet based mapping and routing service. In turn, there are equally as many considerations that end users must confront in accessing these services. Unfortunately, many of the issues highlighted are currently unresolved, some even creating more questions than they do answers. However, if the total benefits of online technologies, such as the Internet, are ever to be realised then all parties involved must begin to address these issues and work towards appropriate solutions. Fortunately, the pace of the Internet’s growth today will ensure that this occurs sooner than latter.