jstn:
Flash Earth has a nice interface and multiple map sources, including daily updated maps from NASA.
Find the online opportunities in your own backyard
More and more online advertising, specifically local advertising, is shifting to performanced-based models - Cost Per Click/Call, Cost Per Acquisition, Cost Per Transaction, etc. an important point not mentioned in the article linked to above.
Local media companies who develop cross-platform (mobile!) performance based solutions will do well, especially if they can scale across markets.
It’s not that spending on local ads isn’t growing — that market expanded at a 57.2% clip last year. The big winners so far are Internet companies like Google and Local.com, which collectively control 53.3% of the local online ad market, up from 25% in 2006. And they’ve done that with only 1,400 ad-sales reps.
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WSJ, Newspapers Think Locally for Online Ads.
The facts in the above quote taken from this WSJ article (subscription required) busts the “you need feet on the street” myth (thanks MythBusters) to be successful making money online with local advertisers. The statistics seem to clearly suggest the opposite, that if you have a local product that requires feet on the street to sell, the model for scaling the product is probably inherently flawed.
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