Paper presented at the 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science in Brno, April 19-21, 2001. Marketplaces for Geographic Information Christoph Brox and Werner Kuhn Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster, Robert-Koch-Str. 26-28, D-48149 Muenster, Germany, broxc@ifgi.uni-muenster.de , kuhn@ifgi.uni-muenster.de Abstract. E-commerce and e-business require new business models and services for the geographic information market. This paper identifies electronic marketplaces for geographic information (GI) as main components of new business models for an expanding GI market. It evaluates existing spatial and non-spatial marketplaces in order to develop key issues and guidelines for the (re)design of marketplaces adapted to the special requirements of the GI market. It describes services GI marketplaces need to provide. The consideration of technical aspects as well as business, organizational and institutional aspects leads to six categories of services: matching buyers and sellers, support co-operation within the geospatial value chain, facilitation of transactions, marketing, provision of an institutional, organizational, and technical infrastructure, and provision of additional services. The paper provides the basis for the ongoing research in developing a “cookbook” for the (re)design of marketplaces for geographic information. 1. Introduction Geographic information (GI) lags behind the expected market growth. The vast majority of potential users of geographic information are not asking for the data sets they are mostly offered, but for information products and services that are tailored to their needs and ready-to-use. This requires a networked co-operation of the entire geospatial value chains of producers, service providers, integrators, service enablers, and end-users (Niedzwiadek 1999) . The challenge is to develop new models and successful mechanisms for the communication and co-operation of buyers and sellers of geographic information.