History of Multi Scale Web Maps

Let's first quickly take a look at the history of the World Wide Web (the Web) and look back to see when The Big 5 (Google, Bing, Yahoo, MapQuest and OpenStreetMap) online mapping providers starting publishing maps over the web.

The Web really started to take off in 1993 when graphical web browsers started to become available to the general public. However the web had been developed much earlier in more complex forms back in 1980's by a guy named Tim Berners-Lee who work for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Switzerland (CERN). Up until 1993 the Web was still very much in it's infancy until around 1994-95 where businesses started to realise the potential of marketing their services through a browser using the internet.

Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web.  Photo: AFP / GETTY IMAGES

The Web was limited in its early days by the speed of the internet service provided to most users. As the growth of the Web took off so did the speed at which users could download information. Information like maps. For many of us the Web was frustratingly slow in its early days and it would of been virtually impossible to have access to the online mapping website like we do today because they would have taken forever to load into your browser or onto your phone.

Some of the map based services MapQuest offer via the iPhone.

Thankfully today we now have the bandwidth to access these most amazing maps from our desktop computers and on our mobile/cell phones.

So if the Web began back in 1993 how long did it take for online mapping to start hitting our browsers?

Here is a multi scale web map timeline which I put together earlier.....

February 5, 1996 - Mapquest.com was launched and changed the way people view maps for ever! www.mapquest.com

March 7, 2002 - Yahoo! Maps went live.
 http://maps.yahoo.com/

July 1, 2004 - OpenStreetMap was founded. The world's largest editable free map of the world.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/

April 2005 - Google Maps begins....

http://maps.google.com/

July 2007 - Microsoft Virtual Earth launched (now Bing Maps. Bing Maps started in May 2009).

http://www.bing.com/maps/

Researching the start up dates of each of the services was quite a task! I thought it would be easy to find information relating to each of their launch dates. Not so. If any of you have information or sources that disagree with the dates above please let me know!

Interestingly MapQuest was the first company to launch an online mapping service via The Web. I suspect most people would think that it was Google due to their dominance in today's current market.

In the next post I will look at some of the key features of each mapping provider and try and dig up some user statistics about who are using the maps, how and where!

Introduction

Thank-you for visiting my blog. My intention for this blog is to provide you with an insight into the authoring/building of multi scale web maps like what Google, Bing, Yahoo, MapQuest and Open Street Map provide.

Maps have never been more widely used and viewed by the public than they are today. Multi scale web maps are now accessible to millions and millions of people worldwide on a daily basis. They are used for a variety of purposes, on a variety of mediums and are transforming the way we view the world. They assist us in sharing information like we never have before and are helping us to make better decisions about our environment and the world we live in. They help us travel from point A to B faster and they help us find the nearest restaurant, hotel or cinema. And these are just a few of the common day to day uses of such maps. There are of course many more!

Google's Map Marker will most likely become the most

recognised map symbol in history!

Never before have we been able to view the world from our homes, offices or by using our cell phones like we can today. So how do these maps get created/built? Where does the data or information behind the maps comes from? What programs/software is used to build the maps and who builds/authors the maps? What are the key cartographic design considerations when building multi scale online maps? What are the key differences between the 'Big 5' online mapping providers?

Who would of thought we could view some of the
world's most iconic landmarks in such detail from our desktop or mobile
using web map services like Bing's bird's eye viewer - incredible really! © Bing Maps 2011.

I am going to address all of these questions and more during this blog. Why you ask? Because I want other cartographers and the general public to better understand this incredible and amazing technical revolution.

I hope you can continue to visit my blog and find the information interesting as I address the ins and outs of multi scale web maps!

Screen shots from Google's Terrain Maps at different scale levels. © Google 2011.
You can see that at each scale the map gives the user a more detail representation of the earths surface.
The idea that you get more detail as you keep 'zooming in' is the core property of a multi scale web map.