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Comment by zmanian | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised that Google decided that microsat imaging market was a distraction. It seems very high potential and synergistic with Google's other space based endeavors.

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Provided that they can still buy the data, they may decide that the differentiator isn't the proprietary data but the data analysis they put on top of it. In which case owning and acquiring the data is no longer crucial.

Plain-old satellite imagery is starting to become a cost race to the ground. Real sauce is in the analysis - for example look at Orbital Insight or Descartes labs.

Satellite imagery companies try to differentiate by higher resolution or alternative imagery formats like multi-spectral.

Lots of insight on the value wars on satellite imaging in this post from Valery Komissarov, a "space" VC:

https://medium.com/@V.K.Komissarov/moment-of-truth-for-new-s...

Actually, the whole blog is worth bookmarking if you're into this field.

The problem is that currently there isn't too many customers beyond hedge funds/governments for these kind of data

That's not necessarily a problem considering the depth of the pockets of those types of clients (landowners, logistics and insurance are other major markets)

The bigger issue for Google specifically is that those types of clients are best served with a lot of handholding, and not with the self-service, mass-consumption sales model Google prefers. Also it's not a market they're ever likely to dominate.

What kind of things are hedge funds using satellite imaging for that they would amount to being a big customer? I'm assuming maybe oil tanker/bulk carrier movements for the commodities market? Or maybe something in the agriculture markets?

I've always heard that they're tracking parking lots at retail (Walmart) to predict revenue.

But isn't that ALWAYS the example used for how near real-time satellite imagery could be used? As the world urbanizes, this will be less useful. If uber destroys car ownership, this won't be as useful. What are the other markets and use for even more frequent and rapid earth observation? Not sure anyone will pay for it?

There are other things that are just as / more useful. Ship and container activity at a given port, for example. Number of trucks entering / exiting said port. These can be very useful in the right hands, and are much less likely to be disrupted by Uber anytime soon.

Ocean imagery typically isn't downloaded, or if it is then at strikingly low resolution. This provides three times the bandwidth for land-based imagery, as the earth is covered by about 70% water.

I was thinking that they could be tracking ships going in and out of ports, not necessarily while out to sea.

With a bit of creativity it's surprising what can be gleaned from satellite imagery; Orbital Insight produced a report estimating tha China was developing strategic reserves of oil by measuring shadows of oil tanks which rise and fall with volume of oil stored

Agriculture, forestry, construction and mining sectors are particularly amenable to satellite analysis, provided you know where the assets to be monitored are.

True, but monetizing the data might be a job for specialists in satellite imagery.

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