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not only to come out with a killer application, but it is at
least as important to support the creation of a multitude of
innovative applications so as to accumulate indirect symbolic
and financial income.
Moreover, providing a re-usable base map enables Google
to reinforce its central position on the Web, which is
necessary for targeted advertising spaces and is Google's
main source of income:
The advertising market can be compared to the
development of services or the purchase of
companies with the aim of covering the whole
digital space and the statistical monitoring of all
possible parameters. The main effect of the
pressure exerted by the advertising market on
the company was probably that it encouraged it to
develop in the direction of a document service.
The year 2004 witnessed a steep acceleration
with: Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Talk,
Google Video, Google Desktop, Google Book
Search. Although these services have had various
degrees of success, the general tendency of
investing the entire document system was
accelerated even more, with, amongst others,
Android, YouTube, Google Chrome, Google +.
9
[SAL 12, p.136-137]
For Boris Beaude, Chrome browser enables Google to
have a more prominent position in the everyday practices on
the Web [BEAU 12, p.101]. Similarly, it provides a base map
that is reprogrammable through an API and transforms
Google into an “obligatory passage point” [CAL 86] of the
Web 2.0. Mountain View chose to make its mapping data
9 It is to be noted that Jean-Michel Salaün associates Google Maps with
the year 2004, when, in reality, it was made available online only in
February 2005.
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