No Google Earth infrastructure layer: thoughts on the community model

A week or two ago I speculated that Google could move the infrastructure discussion along ....

Gordon's Notes: Bridges: 77,000 deficient, 750 have I-35W design

8/3/07 Update: I thought a bit more about how Google could accelerate the infrastructure review. A 'route around risky bridge' option for Google Map directions would concentrate minds wonderfully. One can readily imagine icons for bridges with the I-35W design and risk designation....

In the meantime, I was pretty sure the Google Earth community would put an infrastructure layer up that would attach federal infrastructure ratings to bridges like this one (Strib, Aug 11, 2007)...

Corroded strands of rebar jut from the sides and pillars of the cracked Hwy. 36 bridge near Stillwater, while jagged pieces of fallen concrete litter the ground below.

Every day, nearly 10,000 vehicles travel eastbound over the crumbling structure. Most of the people in the huge trucks, cars and school buses on the bridge are unaware that it has been listed federally as "basically intolerable."...

I still can't find such a layer, though problems with the OS X version of GE may be limiting my search (Is Google losing interest in GE in favor of Maps only?). Today I posted a comment on a GE blog to try to move things along. In a sad sign of the times the blog I commented to does point to a Google Maps mash-up that claims to do just what I want -- but that map is festooned with ad words, shows no data, and seems to be a splog. Yech. I'll withhold that URL, thank you.

All of which leads to two questions. Why do some community products take off and others don't? Are we seeing a community fatigue where the small minority of compulsive contributors are tapped out?

I'm fairy sure the latter is true -- it would be very odd if we didn't see a drop in participation after the usual early adopter surge -- followed by a resurgence a few years from now. The relentless onslaught of the fraudulent and parasitic "contributor" (e.g. splogs) doesn't help, but of course game theorists and evolutionary biologists know how inevitable that is. [Hint: If you're going to do a genuine community project, you probably can't do advertising at all.]

As to the former, I think that question is going to be discussed for many a year to come. It's easy to guess that the mathematical model for community project success will resemble the models used to forecast disease epidemics. I think this would be a nice little project for a class in mathematical modeling ...