Joe Morrison – Medium

Joe Morrison

Satellite Imagery is Not Becoming a Commodity

Disclaimer: I work at Umbra, a satellite imagery company. I’m hopelessly biased on this topic. As Upton Sinclair famously quipped, “It is…

Dec 9, 2021

Satellite Imagery is Not Becoming a Commodity

Dec 9, 2021

Autonomous Vehicles Won’t Revolutionize Maps

Originally published in February’s edition of my monthly newsletterAnything you read here gets sent there first. To get articles like this…

Apr 8, 2021

Autonomous Vehicles Won’t Revolutionize Maps

Apr 8, 2021

Why I’m Leaving Azavea to Join Umbra

(This piece was originally published on my newsletter, A Closer Look with Joe Morrison on January 15, 2021. I post everything I write…

Feb 19, 2021

Why I’m Leaving Azavea to Join Umbra

Feb 19, 2021

Google Maps’ Moat is Evaporating

This post was originally published on my monthly email newsletter, A Closer Look with Joe Morrison and subsequently discussed at length on…

Dec 31, 2020

Google Maps’ Moat is Evaporating

Dec 31, 2020

Esri Can’t Be Stopped

If you like this post, please consider subscribing to my email newsletter, “A Closer Look.” Once a month I share a new analysis (like this…

Dec 21, 2020

Esri Can’t Be Stopped

Dec 21, 2020

Announcing a New Monthly Newsletter

The last month has been pretty wild. In the last 30 days, 145K people have been kind enough to visit my blog posts. Many have reached out…

Dec 16, 2020

Announcing a New Monthly Newsletter

Dec 16, 2020

Death of an Open Source Business Model

Eulogy for a simpler time

Dec 9, 2020

Death of an Open Source Business Model

Dec 9, 2020

OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment

The Billion Dollar Dataset Next Door

Nov 18, 2020

OpenStreetMap is Having a Moment

Nov 18, 2020

Stop Building Satellite Imagery Platforms and Marketplaces

Build something else. Anything else.

Nov 12, 2020

Stop Building Satellite Imagery Platforms and Marketplaces

Nov 12, 2020

We Have the Technology

On the Climate Emergency and the Role of Geospatial Technology

Nov 1, 2020

We Have the Technology

Nov 1, 2020

Open Letter to a Newly Formed Satellite Imagery Company

The text below is adapted from an email sent to an up-and-coming satellite imagery provider. Some details have been omitted or adapted in…

Oct 29, 2020

Open Letter to a Newly Formed Satellite Imagery Company

Oct 29, 2020

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is About to Revolutionize Commercial Earth Observation

I recently wrote about the commercial satellite imagery industry and how fundamentally backwards it is. In that piece, I was mainly…

Oct 5, 2020

Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is About to Revolutionize Commercial Earth Observation

Oct 5, 2020

The Government-Backed VC Firm Behind the Modernization of Mapping

All (Mapped) Roads Lead to In-Q-Tel

Aug 26, 2020

The Government-Backed VC Firm Behind the Modernization of Mapping

Aug 26, 2020

The Commercial Satellite Imagery Business Model is Broken

Have you ever tried to purchase a satellite image?

Aug 7, 2020

The Commercial Satellite Imagery Business Model is Broken

Aug 7, 2020

Vicariously.io, Viral Loops, and the Virtue of Simplicity

Something unusual happened this afternoon on Twitter — out of the blue, I got three notifications that I had been added to a “list.”…

Jul 28, 2020

Vicariously.io, Viral Loops, and the Virtue of Simplicity

Jul 28, 2020

Why on Earth did Facebook Just Acquire Mapillary?

The big news in the geospatial world at the moment is Facebook’s acquisition of Mapillary. For those unfamiliar, Mapillary is a darling of…

Jun 22, 2020

Why on Earth did Facebook Just Acquire Mapillary?

Jun 22, 2020

I Played Chess Every Day for a Year

And all I have to show for it is this crummy blog post

Apr 29, 2020

I Played Chess Every Day for a Year

Apr 29, 2020

Designing Effective Supervised Machine Learning Systems

A few months ago, I read a wonderful blog post simply titled “Advantage Flywheels” about how competitive advantages in business can…

Dec 9, 2019

Designing Effective Supervised Machine Learning Systems

Dec 9, 2019

Three Models for Commercializing Open Source Software

One of my favorite public figures in the business world is Patrick O’Shaughnessy, or as I like to call him, the Oprah of EBITDA. If you…

Nov 27, 2019

Three Models for Commercializing Open Source Software

Nov 27, 2019

Why Hasn’t Open Source Software Disrupted Esri?

I recently tweeted that open source software is slowly but surely devouring Esri’s entire product offering after seeing a beautiful new…

Nov 13, 2019

Why Hasn’t Open Source Software Disrupted Esri?

Nov 13, 2019

Joe Morrison

Joe Morrison

Comedic relief at Umbra. Writing about maps and the people that make them. For inquiries: jrmorrison.jrm [at] gmail [dot] com

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