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"It was something we did to show off our software could do this, but the company didn't care about the information," Barclay told me. "Google was an information company first. They saw the value of the information."

Microsoft learned, maybe even before Google, that most search is local. If Terraserver didn't have images for people's hometowns, they got angry

"In the first year, I got 20,000 emails, and the vast majority of them said one of two things," Barclay said. "It was either 'I love Terraserver, I saw my house' or 'I hate Terraserver, I didn't see my house' We learned that 85 percent of all geospacial queries are local. They're looking for local search—they want to find whatever dry cleaner is around the corner, or where they could get fast food."