GlobeXplorer

Digital Globe

Type	Subsidiary of public company (Stewart Title)
Founded	Walnut Creek, California (1999)
Headquarters	Walnut Creek, California, USA
Key people	Rob Shanks, Co-founder/President Paul Smith, Co-founder/COO Majid Azad, CFO
Industry	Websites Aerial Photography Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
Products	ImageAtlas ImageBuilder ImageConnect

GlobeXplorer(Now Digital Globe) is an online spatial data company that compiles and distributes aerial photos, satellite imagery, and map data from their online spatial archives. Based in Walnut Creek, CA, Digital Globe has been credited as the first company to establish a business around compiling and distributing online aerial and satellite imagery. Digital Globe owns the aerial photography firm AirPhotoUSA.

Products

Digital Globe’s primary products are its ImageAtlas viewer and ImageBuilder web developer toolkit. They also provide ImageConnect extensions and web services for GIS and CAD.

History

GlobeXplorer was founded in 1999 by Rob Shanks, Chris Nicholas, and Paul Smith (former executives at HJW GeoSpatial, Inc.) through partnerships with Sun Microsystems and NASA. It grew from a NASA EOCAP project of HJW's to place ready-made orthophotography online, and an internal project of Sun Microsystems and Oracle to counter the Microsoft "Terraserver" technology demonstration. The EOCAP project concluded with the creation of the 'Aerotopia' site in 1998. HJW was acquired by Harrod's of London, who provided financial backing to spin out the online effort into GlobeXplorer, which launched its public website in September 2000. A article entitled "Now you, too, can be a Spy" appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal's business section, and traffic reached nearly 4 million page views the first day. In 2005, GlobeXplorer acquired AirPhotoUSA, one of the nation’s leading providers of aerial imagery. Previous owner Stewart Title (STC) sold the company to Digital Globe in early January 2007.

Prominent Customers

In addition to its own website, Digital Globe's imagery and property data can be found on Ask.com, Zillow.com, National Geographic, Reply.com, and the Germany-based Map24.com, as well as inside various professional real estate services like CoStar, eNeighborhoods, and Rappatoni MLS.

Partner Relationships

Digital Globe obtains its content through online distribution relationships with about 30 of the world’s top acquirers of aerial, satellite, and property data.

External links

• GlobeXplorer's corporate home page
• GlobeXplorer's ImageAtlas Viewer
• GeoSpatial Solutions Magazine article on ImageBuilder