I'm sure you've all used Google Maps

whether it's to get directions to a new

restaurant or stock someone's house

through street view we're all familiar

with the tremendous resource that is

Google Maps something that most of us

likely take for granted is that just

like all of Google's other products Maps

is completely free to use for as long as

you want this sort of Premium model

isn't too surprising with search or

email where everything you need is

virtual but Maps is a pretty grueling

business that requires a lot of physical

resources from the dozens of satellites

and hundreds of street view cars that

constantly Monitor and take pictures of

the earth to all the servers and

supercomputers required to complete

millions of hours of processing to

seamlessly stitch together pedabytes of

data and let's not forget about all the

hours spent on blurring our license

plates faces houses and other personally

identifiable information clearly there's

no question that Google Maps takes a lot

of resources to keep functional and up

to dat

and while its value proposition to

Google wasn't too clear in the early

days Maps has grown to be one of

Google's most lucrative businesses in

fact Morgan Stanley estimates that

Google Maps will pull in over 11 billion

in Revenue in 2023 alone for perspective

that's about the same as Tik Tok and if

we valued Google Maps the same way as

alphabet Google Maps itself would be

worth roughly $62 billion that's about

the same as Mercedes-Benz and more than

Volkswagen and PayPal heck that's enough

to be a top 250 Company by itself but

how does Google even monetize Maps they

don't show video ads or search ads and

there doesn't seem to be much

opportunity to collect and sell our data

based on just our Google Maps usage well

it turns out that Google has come up

with some pretty creative ways to

indirectly monetize Maps while staying

surprisingly ethical so here's the

insane rise of Google Maps and how

Google Maps really make so much m

money taking a look back the story of

Google Maps takes us back 20 years to

2003 like many of Google's products Maps

wasn't something that Google created in

house it was actually something that

they bought from four men named LS rasm

Jin rasm Noah Gordon and Steven ma

together they had founded a startup

called it were 2 Technologies in Sydney

Australia the idea for the platform was

pretty simple create a next gen desktop

map platform but it turns out that this

was a lot easier said than done and

pretty soon they needed a lot more

resources leading them to meet up with

Google in late 2004 initially Google

wasn't actually all that convinced about

where to Technologies until the founder

suggested the idea of converting the

desktop application into a web platform

that could be accessed much more easily

with that Google would agree to take a

flyer on the company for an undisclosed

amount which was likely well below $50

million word two technologies wasn't the

only map-based company that Google

purchased in 2004 though around the same

time they would purchase two other map

companies called Keyhole and zip Dash

like where two technologies Keyhole was

a desktop application but unlike where I

Technologies kho was more focused on the

macro scale AKA viewing the entire Earth

and various countries as opposed to

specific streets and directions I don't

think you'd be surprised to hear that

this is what would turn into Google

Earth and Google would get this entire

company for just $35 million but in

terms of value nothing comes close to

their third acquisition zip Dash in fact

zip Dash might be Google's most bang for

buuck acquisition of all time as they

were able to purchase this company for

just $2 million what did zip Dash do you

ask well they specialized in using

location data from mobile phones to

create approximate real-time traffic

data this Tech would be underappreciated

and underused by by Google for several

years but once smartphone started taking

off all of that would completely change

but anyway going back to 2004 after all

the Acquisitions were done Google would

spend a few months refining the

Technologies before finally launching

Google Maps on February 18th 2005

apparently Google Maps would get slash

doted the night before its launch if you

also don't know what that means it

basically means that Google Maps went

viral on a form the day before launch

which led to an explosive launch right

out of the gate but this traffic didn't

last you see for a lot of us myself

included 2005 Probably sounds like the

stone ages when it comes to the internet

but it turns out that there were already

some pretty great mapping Solutions on

the market before Google Maps

specifically Yahoo maps and map quest

and while Google Maps was Superior to

these offerings from day one that by

itself was by no means enough to

displace the market leaders for most

people yaku maps and map quest already

accomplished what they needed and they

had no reason to use Google Maps instead

so the general consensus for year 1 was

that Google Maps did just okay it pulled

in a decent amount of traffic but

nothing too crazy Google could have

easily just called it right here and

kept Maps a small side business but they

were determined to make maps much more

than just that and as such they would

scrap everything and start

over

given the underwhelming response Google

would decide to do a complete rewrite of

Google Maps it turns out that while

Google Maps was better than Map Quest

and Yahoo maps for modern standards it

was still rather slow so their number

one goal with the rewrite was to

maximize speed and optimize the user

experience and after about a year of

work they would get the platform to be

nearly instantaneous allowing them to

make much more ambitious moves starting

with satellite view Google would stitch

together all of the imagery that they

got from the keyho acquisition to create

satellite view fun fact satellite view

isn't actually satellite view in most

cases it's actually aerial view taken

from low-flying Planes the map team was

actually debating on whether to call it

aerial mode or satellite mode but when

Sergey Brin made the decision to call it

bird mode the rest of the team would

decide to unite and defy Sergey by just

calling it satellite mode apparently

Sergey wouldn't ever comment on this

name change

but anyway satellite mode would come out

in late 2005 and this was immediately a

selling feature for Google Maps putting

the actual utility of satellite mode

aside most users just like messing

around with it being able to see your

house and City from a bird's eye

perspective was super neat you kind of

felt like you were a top secret spy or

something Google would simply take this

novelty to the next level on May 29th

2007 with the debut of Street View

street view was obviously an extremely

ambitious project Google was basically

signing up to bankroll cars driving

around every single Street in the entire

world it did turn out to be a really

popular feature though now not only

could you see your City from an aial

perspective but you could literally walk

through the streets as if you were

actually there but while satellite mode

and street view definitely made Google

Maps unique and drove of popularity the

number one Trend that made Google Maps

ubiquitous was of course smartphones in

fact smartphone based Revenue accounts

for nearly 90% of Google Maps Revenue

which is not that surprising Android is

the most popular operating system in the

world used by billions of people and you

know what comes pre-installed on Android

devices it's of course Google Maps so

most Android users are naturally just

going to use Google Maps whether it's

the best or not just like how everyone

used to use yahu maps and map quest all

of this has allowed Google Maps to reach

over 1 billion monthly active users but

while they were eventually able ble to

get to a dominant position it was by no

means an easy road while Google was able

to acquire the core three companies that

make up Google Maps for less than $100

million actually making Google Maps

successful cost a lot more money

according to one Professor just The

Upfront cars cameras computers and

Manpower alone cost over $400 million

and Google never stopped updating their

imagery if anything they actually do it

more and more often with time so there's

no question that creating and Main

maintaining Google Maps has cost Google

billions of dollars over the years which

brings us into the question of the day

how did they make all of this

worthwhile Google's monetization

strategy when it comes to Maps breaks

down into two main categories given that

Google is an advertising company at the

core I don't think you'd be surprised to

hear that the first category is ADS but

it's actually done in a really tasteful

helpful manner you know how when you pan

around Google Maps you see businesses

like Walmart and Home Depot and

Starbucks well listing a business or

location on Google Maps is actually

completely free and basically anyone can

do it provided you have the right

documents and rights if you want to take

this to the next level though with

custom branding and high visibility you

can pay Google a fee and basically make

your listing a premium listing to be

honest this seems like a win-win

scenario users are able to find

businesses more EAS ly with their logos

and companies are able to increase their

brand presence in a discrete

non-intrusive manner but all of that is

only half the story Google's other mode

of monetization is honestly far more

interesting which is apis you know how

when you go to a website of a restaurant

or a local bowling alley you'll

sometimes see a small map showing you

the location of the Avenue well

companies are able to do this thanks to

Google's map apis for which they have to

pay and that's more of a small use case

imagine what happens when someone

someone like FedEx Uber Airbnb Zillow or

door Dash Implement Google Maps all I

can say is that that would cost quite a

bit of money and that's just the most

obvious implementation of Google Maps

likely the most commonly used Google

Maps API actually has nothing to do with

maps directly you know how when you

start entering in a billing address or a

shipping address the address autofills

well that's thanks the Google placees

API basically every company in the

entire world who collects address

information uses Google places or a

direct competitor like Microsoft's Azure

Maps if they don't they're probably

stuck in the 1990s on a peruse basis

Google Places is relatively cheap it's

only about 3 cents per use but think

about how many times you yourself might

use this every year maybe 10 times per

year that itself is 30 cents worth of

revenue for Google if 3 billion people

were to do this every year that itself

is $1 billion worth of revenue for

Google from just one API

I think you can start to see how all of

this can add up to 11 billion when you

throw in hundreds of different apis and

use cases but even putting the

financials aside thanks to Google Maps

Google has been able to map out the

entire globe in pinpoint detail this

means knowing the exact address and

location of any and every commercial and

residential property in the entire world

and if that itself wasn't enough they

also know the exact location of billions

of people on this highly detailed map at

any given point in time if that isn't an

insane amount of power I don't know what

is and that's why even if Google Maps

never even made a single dime for Google

Google would be the real winner when it

comes to Google Maps the fact that

Google Maps pulls an 11 billion in

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