Michael Jones' keynote presentation at SiRF's inaugural Location 2.0 Summit this past Tuesday at CTIA introduced the LBS audience to a larger world of spatial data created by users with local knowledge, suggesting "it's the guy who lives there who knows more, not the guy in a Tele Atlas van". To reinforce his point, Jones demonstrated Google Earth’s use by the US Holocaust Museum to document the genocidal crisis in Darfur, which subsequently sparked a rally of humanitarian aid and due attention for the region.

The power of user based publishing is unprecedented and can indeed inspire rapid change, but these democratized tools and means of production and distribution can also harm - check out this Guardian clip of the al-Aqsa rocket brigade using Google Earth to target Israeli villages with missiles.