In the increasingly connected world, "users are growing to expect continuous access to data, and they increasingly are using location information where they live and work," according to Darren Koenig, wireless market director at Tele Atlas of Boston.

Companies are providing this information via overlapping spheres of connectivity, including wired, Wi-Fi and cellular and satellite information such as GPS coordinates and satellite imagery is making its way to consumer devices. Many businesses also are leveraging the technology, relying on geospatial data that includes information collected by satellites for asset-tracking and work-order dispatching, said Koenig. "When you layer on additional information about local points of interest and add in dynamic elements such as traffic, it’s easy to understand why these technologies are being adopted so rapidly," he said.

"Satellite data services are beginning to play an increasing role in the mobile handheld market," said Bryan Padgett, an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton. "The key driver for this change is the integration of GPS receivers into mobile devices."

Satellite imagery is hot because Google and some of its Internet competitors have introduced the data to millions of desktops — and now delivers the information to as many handheld devices.

Geoeye is a key provider of imagery to Google’s two biggest competitors: Microsoft Virtual Earth and Yahoo. Geoeye’s Mark Brender, says the company "expects to launch our next- generation imaging satellite early next year. What’s unique is that Geoeye-1 will be the world’s highest resolution commercial earth imaging satellite. From 450 miles in space, the satellite will be able to see or discern objects on the ground as small as 16 inches in size and all in color," he says. "More importantly, because of GPS in the satellite, we will be able to locate an object on the earth’s surface to within a few meters of its true location on the globe. The satellite is basically a mapping machine in orbit. This sort of quality, map-accurate imagery will be ideal for search engines."

Brender thinks there is no going back to the era of cartoon maps: "People are now used to looking at satellite imagery maps or hybrids," he says. "The race has begun between search engines and we are caught in the middle as a provider of content." In Brender’s view, "the search engine that can boast they have the most accurate and most current satellite imagery married with the most functionality will be the victor."

For Ian White of San Francisco-based Urban Mapping, the real value in all this is not the spatial data itself but the other data connected to the spatial data. For example, Urban Mapping offers a database of mass transit systems, which includes point data, routing, scheduling and other information such as "what hours a station is open, does it have an escalator, is there a station attendant, are there (un)scheduled repairs, etc.," he says.

Another example is "point of interest data." Traditionally, coordinates for the Empire State Building are available via a POI database. But, White says that "for people to act on this information, they in fact need to know the hours of operation, on which corner the entrance can be found, and so forth."

White contends that "the explosion of satellite imagery acquisition is good all around, but it also begs the question–what do I actually do with satellite imagery as a consumer? The answer lies in annotating it with a rich collection of data that support and directly link to the spatial data."

This evolution is being shaped by small firms like Urban Mapping, which enables telcos and others to develop consumer-facing applications using geodata. Urban Mapping offers several spatial data products which include a database of informal spaces and mass transit routing with a rich collection of attributes. The neighborhood boundary database allows telcos, web portals and others involved in local search to connect online research with offline activity. White and his customers think that this evolution will continue — and the pace of change will increase. What will develop, perhaps rather quickly, is "an increasingly large gap between traditional GIS/remote sensing and web-based platforms," White says. "… Concerns such as projections and formats are not of great significance for network-served data via the Web, yet the GIS community continues to solve its own concerns, not wholly aware of the way in which spatial data is leveraged."

Patrick Agnieray, vice president of marketing at Alcatel Alenia Space, says that his company "is devoting major resources to the use of satellite navigation in the provision of location-based services. It is seen as an enabler for other types of value-added services, particularly those using position data to help enable specific services for the end- user," he says. These include ‘find-a-friend’ applications for the general public; critical vehicle positioning for professional applications such as fire emergency; locate individual users for dangerous tasks to ensure organizer has correct positioning; and many other types of transport applications. Agnieray and his colleagues in France have concluded that the "value added services are sellable, with vertical applications, but the location data is not of sufficient value itself."

Greg Turetzky of Sirf Corp. of San Jose, Calif., argues that the growth in satellite data systems capable of pushing large amounts of data to mobile users "has great potential if proper context is added to the content. Just like the Internet, when large amounts of data are available, a method to search and sort for relevant data is the key, especially on a mobile device where storage and display are limited," he says. "We believe that location awareness will be a key filter of data in making these new applications user friendly and intuitive."

Turetzky thinks that what’s really needed is a "Location Stamp" to "add context to such data, such as traffic information relevant to the navigation route of the driver, the video clip of the movie at the nearby theatre, the talk radio show whose subject today is of local interest, etc." Innovations in geo-search technology by Google, Microsoft and others clearly are a major step in this direction. Sirf is providing location awareness to these mobile devices via GPS and in combination with other satellite and terrestrial technologies. Turetzky is especially hopeful because "location will be a key technology enabler to allow mobile devices to access the new satellite data services in a meaningful way for the end consumer."

Some important new players are making a dent in this area: Chuck Herring, a spokesman for Longmont, Colo.-based Digitalglobe says his company "sees a rise in demand for its imagery products as organizations increasingly look to geospatial information to overcome challenges and support the decision-making process."

The increasing demand for and prevalence of geospatial data is leading to what some analysts are calling the "Geospatial Web" where data becomes increasingly easy to search for, discover and integrate; digital imagery is a foundation on top of which new services can be created and delivered. Digitalglobe was among the first companies to deliver an always-on source of geospatial content via the Internet and provides on of the largest archive of current and accurate satellite imagery available with more than 200 million square kilometers of data.