Developments that have made the difference

1. Open standards.

The rapid development and adoption of open standards has provided a stable platform for making GIS investment decisions.

2. Active government backing

Government backing, especially in the USA, Australia and the European Union, has fuelled the adoption of standards and data infrastructure.

3. Global and National Spatial Data Infrastructures

The manifestation of government enthusiasm has been the design and acceptance of Global and National Spatial Data Infrastructures (GSDI and NSDI).

NSDI and GSDI have involved the technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community.

In particular, acceptance of the Digital Earth Reference Model has meant that the web services model has become dominant. They have had an enormous impact on the development of web mapping in recent years.

4. The availability of WebMapping tools

Social Change Online's tools are at the forefront of this new industry.

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