# Review of Web Mapping: Eras, Trends and Directions
## 4 Trends and Directions in Web Mapping
### Trends in Web Map Usage Components
#### 4.1.2 Web Mapping User Trends  
Web mapping developments have had and continue to have a strong influence on the number and diversity of users and their ability to use and interact with geospatial and mapping information. Not only has the number of users grown enormously, but also the range in geospatial awareness and literacy, and the way they use geospatial information and collaborate with each other. The Static era was significant for giving multiple users access to online, shared static maps. Through subsequent eras, particularly the Dynamic and Interactive eras, users were then able to interact with the map for the purposes of customizing it and selecting the information to be visualized. The  
Figure 6: Trends and developments across the DIKIW pyramid. Digital Globe era provided the ability to navigate through a 3D landscape with adequate performance in terms of response times. The Mobile and Cloud eras provided users with the ability to interact with mapping information, functionality, location-based services and GIS from the cloud accessed through personalized and mobile devices, thereby enhancing convenience of access to information in time and place. The advances through the eras also enabled developers to more easily link geospatial data from multiple sources into web maps and facilitate the generation of content by communities and users. However, the most significant impact of web mapping across the eras is the dissemination of web maps to a huge proliferation of users. Whereas the exposure to web mapping was limited in the early eras to a relatively small group of expert users and developers, the increasing interactivity, opportunities to collaborate and ease of use of 2D and 3D mapping, evidenced in the Interactive, Collaborative and Digital Globe web mapping eras, have caused the explosion of web mapping access by the average citizen and global community. The user base of access to the Internet expanded from the order of thousands to essentially billions in just over two decades (Figure 7). For example, by 2008, MapQuest had 45 million users per month accessing online maps [112] and Google Maps had over one billion monthly users in 2014, representing 41% of Internet users worldwide [113]. The growth in user numbers will taper off as it approaches the world population and reaches a saturation point. Instead, the usage of web mapping by the same number of users, via apps and applications, will increase. The development and influence of the geospatial web goes well beyond only individuals [18]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [114] focused on the influence of Web 2.0 technology on organizations and how their user culture that must grow alongside technology developments in order to reap the benefits and take advantage of new opportunities. They compared and analyzed a number of large organizations in terms of their technological and organizational readiness to adopt Web 2.0. In general, where the organization developed a culture and initiatives involving interaction and democracy, in essence the principles underlying Web 2.0, they have obtained better value and performance in adopting Web 2.0 technologies. The exposure of web mapping to a large number of users and organizations is very significant as it opened up geospatial data and web maps to a very diverse user base across many disciplines and organizations together with a whole range of new applications. The users of maps and geospatial data have expanded beyond the traditional realm of the likes of land managers, natural resources management and infrastructure developers, to users and applications of health, business, education, finance, economics, travel, tourism, etc. This is evidenced by the increasing number of organizations using geospatial information and maps on the web. For example, as of May 2017, there are over five million websites using Google Maps; of the top one million, 80,000 homepages on the web are using Google Maps [115; 116]. The trends show this number continuing to increase as more  
Figure 7: Growth in number of users on the Internet.