the new "Era of Terra"... or Tierra?

I’ve spent some time recently in the world of Map Mashups, etc., and I’m realizing that the interactive map is possibly the most significant user interface advancement since AI.

There is a wealth of information that is ready to be geo-coded (think of all the digital documents that were on networks, just as the early search engines introduced the idea of “search”…).

The map mash-up is to physical space as search engines & Boolean were to documents: a doorway to usefulness.

Researching Amercican expatriate enclaves, I happened across this search result for “Lake Chapala.” Notice that it is physical (or, geo-coded). Notice that Google doesn’t even have maps for this part of high-mountain Mexico (yet). And who is “I?”

I believe this is a glimpse into the future. Most of the information in our lives has a location, after all. Rare is a dollar spent, not tied to a location. (Come to think of it, scanning my VISA bill for fraud would be so much easier if I could see it on a map… let alone, triangulate it against the whereabouts of my cell phone. Ouch.)

By the way, “Welcome to the Era of Tera” was an ad in WSJ I saw – an ad for a 1k-Gig hard drive. Though MapQuest brought maps mainstream 10 years ago ("Tiera"), I suspect “Tera” will enter the mainstream just as the Internet is redefined as the ultimate map – a single, simple, geo-informational fabric – just like the Internet redefined our perception of “library” so long ago.