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The Long Tail of Mapping Redux
Adena Schutzberg’s column on the “long tail” and its applicability to mapping is interesting in that it mentions the long tail coming up in discussion, but not necessarily where; it might be seen as a response to Joe Francica’s column last month, which, as I pointed out last week, kind of missed the point. (A big thanks to the commenters, by the way, who really added to the discussion.) Adena addresses this in her column, and makes the argument that there is no long tail of mapping — at least not yet: it’s essentially not applicable. While there are niches, there is no central index of geospatial data for sale — no Amazon or iTunes of mapping, meaning no established marketplace that can sell to the niche markets.
I think the problem of applying the “long tail” to mapping is not that we don’t know what the “long tail” is, it’s that we don’t know what we mean by mapping. For Adena, it’s geospatial datasets, but mapping is bigger than the geospatial industry — what about the consumer side? And if it is geospatial data, in what format? Is it a physical product, like a sheet map or an atlas, or just the data — for example, could the “long tail” be applied to GIS data printing out, on a plotter, topo maps that would otherwise be too expensive to produce in a traditional print run? Does it have to be a commercial product, or is it about freely available niche information?
Is the language of the “long tail” of mapping the Google Maps API — niche data applied to a generalized dataset?
The “long tail” is an argument about the economics of distribution, but we can’t do much with it unless we know what we’re distributing. It’s a descriptive paradigm; we need something to describe.
See previous entry: The Long Tail of Mapping?
- Buy The Long Tail at Amazon.com
Categories: Miscellany
The “Long Tail” concept holds a great deal of interest to us at Map Link. Let me tell you why.
Map Link continues to provide access to and stock an active inventory of, much of the world’s hard copy mapping, serving as a one-stop source. Even limited to ground navigation material (road maps and atlases, large scale topographic series, reference maps, and a few thematic maps) Map Link maintains an inventory of over 90,000 different maps and atlases at all times. Map Link has always tried to collect every map and atlas (within the limits mentioned before), from every publisher and agency on earth. Much of this effort was (and is) done regardless of the chance of resale. Yep, we collected and catalogued it all. We attempt to function as this one-stop source for maps in the same way as Amazon does for books and music.
Still, buying and selling hard-copy maps and atlases presents unique problems that the other guys don’t want to touch. Much of this stuff we sell is ephemeral, delicate, and obscure, particularly to a mass-market. Map consumers are looking for specific things, so they must be able to fully preview the map before their purchase decision. Once they preview all the relevant products on offer, only then will they make a purchase. Marketing this material (as a class of consumables) to a broad set of customers is very difficult, if not impossible. Coupling this inferiority complex with travel worries and high gas prices makes for trying times. Buying patterns and decisions for maps are made very differently from other products. It is this that makes the “Long Tail” concept so appealing and hopeful to us as a consolidator, but so elusive to us as a distributor.
For example, because we never know exactly which one will sell, in order to offer one topo map (of hundreds in a set) of the Philippines, we must offer all topo maps of the Philippines. But, topo maps of the Philipppines are difficult to obtain. For Map Link to stock them we travel there, buy the maps in person, and return with them to our warehouse. This effort must be repeated in many parts of the world. The result is that Map Link has thousands of titles that sell slowly, if ever. But, to remain true to our word, there the topo map sets sit, waiting for a customer.
At this time, selling geospatial datasets in the same manner as existing inventory, is a tough problem for a traditional distributor like Map Link. A map distributor must depend on its customer’s recognition that our discrete items can be bought and transported (at a reasonable cost), and (sometimes) resold at an agreed on cost. Today, there are precious few products in the digital geospatial data category that can be boxed up and shipped to a buyer, at an established price, in the same way a road atlas can. It is quite true to say geospatial data may not have a monetisable “traction” right now, at least with the typical map consumer. This may change though. The assemblers and collectors (both commercial and official) of latter-day geospatial data have been hidden, repackaging their datasets under hundreds of different wrappers. But, we are now witnessing a surge in numerous stories in the media featuring the field work behind Navteq and TeleAtlas. Their marketing engines are getting started, with more firms (and brands) to come, I’m sure. Plus, in-car GPS nav systems are advertised on TV now. This new marketing tells me things are maturing, and, I hope, we will see some exciting products to sell.
The “Long Tail” has a lot of attraction for Map Link, if just to give us hope for finding good homes for all these maps we’ve gone to such lengths to collect together. I am looking forward to offering the same within a new paradigm.
Will Tefft | 07/18/2006 at 5:25 AM | #