Virtual Earth and Government Aerials

Information about Microsoft’s GoVE imagery acquisition program has been posted on Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog.  The program is looking for governments to submit their aerial imagery to Microsoft for publication onto Virtual Earth.

We’re just starting a new program called “GoVE” which enables municipalities, state and local governments, aerial photographers, carrier pigeons, whoever, to share your imagery with Microsoft for publishing onto Virtual Earth the platform that powers thousands of enterprise applications, not to mention our own Live Search Maps.

The key will be how eager local governments agencies, who can be very clingy about their geospatial data, will be to part with their high resolution aerial imagery for free.