The president of France talks about it in public. Reuters spreads the news. The service is proclaimed as a Google Earth competitor. The site is in French and aimed at millions of people in France. The service is published by the National Geographic Institute, which is known as IGN, in France.
A huge success would be the first thought which comes to someones mind. Well, in fact it's a national shame for France.
Talking about Geoportail.fr ...
The debacle starts ...
It's Friday the 23. of June 2006 and Reuters spreads the news about a new website i.e. in the Herald Tribune. CNN also picks it up. Everybody worldwide is interested how France will compete with Google Earth.
The president of France:
"This is a step forward for all citizens, which places France at the forefront of new technologies," Chirac said at a ceremony in Paris.
The San Jose Mercury News puts it this way:
France offers aerial view of country via WebA French government-sponsored Web site featuring a detailed aerial map of France went live Friday, rivaling a similar service offered by Mountain View Internet company Google.
Geoportail.fr was created by the French National Geographic Institute and features aerial maps of mainland France and of all the country's overseas territories.
"With Geoportail, France is the first European country to set up a common access portal for public geographical information,'' the National Geographic Institute said in a statement.
Let's have a look how the website design manages the well planned traffic spike
- A huge 2D map of the world.
- A couple of graphics
- Nested tables
- Loads of dynamic links
Boy, they must have some server farm and some Gigabytes per second available. Oops, the page doesn't load. Nice quotes:
Would-be users faced initial disappointment however, as a surge of connections caused the service to crash shortly after its launch.
Official (under-) statement from the French National Geographic Institute (IGN):
It's just temporary," said Bernard Delbey, a spokesman for IGN. "We are surprised and proud of the interest people are showing in the Web site.
It must be one of the biggest Internet launch debacles from all times. It will be used in Powerpoint presentations all over the world by ISPs and hardware salesmen as an example why it is always better to follow their recommendations instead of looking at the big numbers in the calculation sheets.
Some Google Earth blogs pick it up ... stupid if they wouldn't. Ogle Earth - a blog about Google Earth - states on Saturday the 24th on 10:16 UTC Ceçi n'est pas un Géoportail (This is not a Geo-Portal):
Some free advice, then, to France's National Geographic Institute (IGN), makers of Géoportail:
- If you have your president launch your website, you will definitely get lots of visitors.
- Don't launch a generic 2D online map of France — what amounts to a stop-gap measure as you ready your 3D browser for later this year — and hype it in the international press as your response to Google Earth. People will be disappointed. Many of them will already have Google Earth. They know what it is.
- In sum, perhaps you should also have imitated Google's habit of calling initial launches betas. Humility has the added benefit of lowering expectations.
I really can't believe that a nation like France, which has the atom bomb and uses nuclear power for everything, is able to create such a fiasco.
BTW, they launched one week earlier then planned. Le Monde (French newspaper) has that point and Ogle Earth offers it this way:
The site was launched a week earlier than initially planned, to coincide with an announcement by three French ministers regarding an agreement about the future course of French GIS. Perhaps they wanted to go on vacation?
So, if you need some nice catastrophe news to blog about this French fiasco might be something to follow ... I did it already in German during the World Cup game Germany-Sweden (2:0): Internet, Debakel: Frankreich eröffnet neue Satellitenbild Seite (Internet, Debacle: France launches new satellite-picture web site)
Any comments?
Categories / Keywords / Technorati Tags: Markus Merz, 2006, Geoportail, satellite, pictures, images, geodata, Google Earth, website, fiasco, catastrophe, debacle, launch
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Congratulations on the
Congratulations on the launch! The site looks just great! Realy inspiring, sparkling and innovative! Keep up the good work, you’ve got an extra fan!
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