Today is the official announcement of the Locago map browser from Sweden's Idevio. It's being shown in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress. You may have heard of it's RaveGeo vector data compression and streaming technology. Most of the company's customers are from Europe - Ericsson, SAAB and several military users.

Locago is a free downloadable platform for end-users, but really the company is offering a delivery mechanism for mobile and or location-based apps and content. The product/apps will be available in Q2 and as I understand it, some will be free others, for fee. My first thought was it was along the lines of uLocate's WHERE. However, the press release does not really highlight the benefits of the platform beyond that it uses RaveGeo.

I recall hearing about MapServing.com a while back, but per the press release the company, which hosts Mainfold IMS implementations, started back in 2004. Last week it officially launched.

I had the chance to visit MapServing last week and found the "demo" apps seemed to run just fine. There was nothing earthshattering in the gallery, just pretty straighforward, if somewhat dated looking apps.

It's interesting to me that we went though a swell of companies offering hosting services in the early 00's. Many came and went in part because potential users were still "figuring out" this Internet thing. I can't think of any major player in this space in part because many smaller consultancies shifted their role as technology adviser to Web mapping host. Thus from what I understand, many smaller shops either host locally or contract with larger players to host the websites of their clients. Underlying these are a variety of technologies: ArcIMS, MapServer and here, Manifold.

The distinguishing features of this offering, based on the many FAQs offered on the site: price and configurability. Basically, users create their files in Manifold (yes, you must have Manifold), upload them and serve them. There are options and prices based on public hosting in the gallery, protected hosting (password access, etc) and the ability to embed the implementation in a webpage. Costs start from roughly $10, $30 and $50 per month respectively. James Fee was impressed with the prices in his write up of the recent user event.

I found some other hosting costs noted this week in a Government Technology article about "an ambitious GIS initiative by the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), a state-sponsored entity charged with aiding development efforts in about 250 communities."

The agency charges a municipality $8,800 to create a basic iCommunities site or $14,000 if the site includes in-depth economic development information. Annual upkeep costs $4,800 for the basic site, $6,000 with the economic development upgrade, or $7,200 with economic development and detailed crime data.

This story broke last week and just made it to Slashdot. I tracked it back to the press release from Public Citizen, a non-profit public interest organization. There are a few steps here, so let's start at the beginning:

Seneca Technologies filed a Freedom on Information Act lawsuit to gain access to West Virginia's tax maps from the Department of Tax and Revenue. The company won and was charged $20 for the data as opposed to the $225,648 the state wanted. (Total maps: 28,206 TIFs)

Seneca posted the maps on its website.

Kanawha County Tax Assessor Phyllis Gatson is suing Seneca saying its breaking copyright and doing economic damage, as that county sells the maps for $8 a piece. Public Citizen represented Seneca in court last Friday.

via Slashdot

Remember the Gate5 acquisition and Nokia's plan to offer maps to all with its hardware? The new version is now in a limited beta. Among the updates: "walk" mode, traffic and aerial imagery. More details and screenshots at AllAboutSymbian.

InformationWeek gives the latest update on location intelligence in Time For Businesses To Get Serious About Location Technology. It's full of TrackMyPizza, Wal-Mart using WeatherBug, Nokia, NAVTEQ, Con-Way...

There are two sidebars:
GPS Isn't The Only Tool For Location (WiFi locating...)
Questions To Ask When Considering A Location-Based Technology (Two big questions: "How the business can integrate location into its existing mobile strategies, and which applications make the most sense for location.")