*Google bought Sketchup, a 3-D virtual design company,
which is now "Google Sketchup." This may seem
an odd acquisition, but in spime theory, this makes
a certain sense.
Six aspects of spimes:
1. Machine-readable unique identity
2. Locatively trackable
3. Searchable and data-mineable
4. Recyclable
5. Virtually designed and archived
6. Fabbable
If these six trends are really going to converge, then
there will have to be entities that stick those trends together
in various useful or profitable combinations. SketchUp
makes virtual structure plans that can be mashed-up
onto Google Maps, enhancing both these systems.
Interestingly, they're also both exploiting free labor
from social-software architectures of participation,
which I'm coming to think of as the solvent
that glues those six converging trends together.
Who on earth would actually want to make spimes
happen? Who would want them and use them?
As the SketchUp guy says, "three words:
benevolent magic elves."
http://aecnews.com/articles/1446.aspx
AEC News: Technology for Creating the Built Environment
'During the day, as various news sites reported the acquisition, the same question came up over and over: Why? Why does Google want to own 3D CAD technology? As I reported last October, the simple answer is synergy. Everything designed and built exists in a specific place on the planet. Google Earth shows the where, SketchUp shows the what. Since the release of the SketchUp Google Earth Plug-In, thousands of SketchUp users have placed their models into Google Earth, and used Google Earth geo-imagery to enhance SketchUp models.
(((Note: nobody pays the 'users' to do this. They do it
anyhow.)))
Now that Google has paid millions (Google will not disclose the actual purchase price) for a CAD product, we need more than a simple answer. That answer comes from understanding a concept called “force of the many and the architecture of participation.” First articulated by Tim O’Reilly, it means that the more a web-based service allows users to participate in supplying content, the more valuable that service becomes.
(((This also explains why I'm wasting yet another valuable
morning on my blog.)))
User-written book reviews bring additional value to Amazon.com; users as sellers are eBay’s single largest revenue stream; Craigslist.com is slaughtering the newspaper classified ad business with this "force of many." Google will benefit as millions of users, over time, annotate the earth with models of their homes, their offices, their communities. ((("Annotate the Earth.")))
It won’t be just models, but all the relevant metadata, all searchable in Google Earth, a 3D browser that compliments Google’s existing text-based 2D work in whatever browser you now use. Such “force of many” compiling of metadata is already happening on a small scale; the purchase of SketchUp will “put a rocket on the Honda” as @Last Software founder Brad Schell says.
'The simplicity and power of SketchUp combined with the ease of use and accessibility of Google Earth makes for a powerful new CAD/GIS tool, a tool and resource people want to enhance with their own data. People who would have never considered merging CAD models with GIS imagery can do it now, easily. The useful possibilities of combining architectural modeling in a GIS environment seem endless. (((And that's not the half of it;
I reckon it as a first approach to about a third of it.)))
'Because the GIS environment is Google Earth, the results are accessible to anyone with the free Google Earth browser. Because SketchUp is so easy to use and so inexpensive, designers, city planners, researchers, developers, environmentalists, journalists, and enthusiasts of all sorts are starting to put this new toolset to work. The acquisition of SketchUp by Google will only accelerate the process.'
(((Maybe. Meanwhile, in the halls of newly-acquired SketchUp:)))
'We've created something called the 3D Warehouse. Kind of like a cross between a flea market and Mary Poppins' bottomless purse, the 3D Warehouse is a place in cyberspace where you can go to find and download SketchUp models. Where do the models come from, you may ask? Three words: benevolent magic elves.'
http://www.sketchup.com/index.php?id=1439
