It’s 1996. The web is made up of home pages and big corporate portals. You’re a small business, you want a web site but have no in-house HTML code monkeys. What do you do? Chances are that you find a net geek setting up a fledgling “web design” firm, looking for customers like you. The net geek has no idea how his market is about to explode.

It’s 2006. Google Earth is made up of hobbyist content, big science outreach and some experimental real estate and tourism content. You’re a small business, want some content in KMZ and have no in-house GIS code monkeys. What do you do?

There are suprisingly few outfits focused on this market. In the US, I only know of the The Timoney Group as having specifically articulated creating solutions for Google Earth/KML, but Brian Timoney appears to aim at larger corporations. A Dutch company, Globe Assistant, focuses on hotel and real estate. Many other GIS outfits probably could do KML output in their sleep, but the fact is that they aren’t advertising such services to a broader market comprised of smaller customers and smaller jobs.

Via my referrals referrer logs, a company in France is positioning itself in precisely this space. GE-Data sells its services to all comers, and recently reports (in French) of having helped local communities and businesses to present GIS data in Google Earth. Surely this is the start of a major trend, not an oddity?

If anybody has other examples of businesses targeting small businesses or consumers for low-end GIS presentation à la what can be done via KML, I’d love to know about them.

[Update 16:50 UTC: Just to be clear, I don’t do infomercials and this isn’t one. Any ads on this blog are clearly marked as such.]