maps, location based services, geography

On EveryScape, Your Memo Marks the Spot

Wade Roush 5/13/08

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insert the relevant clips from the film; for now, unfortunately, you can’t embed other media inside Scape Memos (the way you can with tools like Platial and Google’s My Maps) but I’m guessing that feature will come along soon.

The Scape Memo feature makes EveryScape part of a larger social phenomenon, the ongoing melding of the Web with real-world geography that Infoworld columnist John Udell has called “annotating the planet.” Indeed, EveryScape CEO Jim Schoonmaker says he takes the “Real World Online” motto quite literally. “What’s really important about EveryScape is not just the virtual environment, but that we also want the images to be the gateways to all of the other information about those places on the Web,” Schoonmaker says.

Local Embassies

At the same time, EveryScape is announcing a new program designed to bring new cities online faster. It’s inviting two-person teams to sign up as “Destination Ambassadors” who will be responsible for photographing all of the public spaces in their territories (say, Chicago, to mention just one city EveryScape doesn’t yet cover). These contractors will come to EveryScape’s headquarters in Waltham for two days of training and certification, then crisscross their territories by car, carrying laptops, portable hard drives, location sensors, and rooftop-mounted cameras.

In addition to earning an up-front fee, Destination Ambassadors will be entitled to a percentage of the advertising revenues EveryScape earns in their cities, according to Schoonmaker. EveryScape is also hiring “Local Business Ambassadors”—basically, assignment photographers who will shoot the interiors at businesses paying EveryScape for walking tours of their properties.

Companies on the scale of Google and Amazon have the dough to send out fleets of camera-equipped vans to collect street views. But for smaller companies with similar ambitions of photographing the globe, there’s little alternative to outsourcing. As Schoonmaker puts it: “EveryScape’s strategy is to empower the world to build the world.”