Factory in Malaysia is offering ad space on its roof
Kumomo, a Malaysian company that owns a large factory, is offering up ad space that would be viewable in all of the various mapping systems (once the area gets updated again). They'll be using a company in California, RoofAds, to do the installation.
I imagine that we'll be seeing quite a bit of this kind of thing as time goes on. In this case, however, there are a few other issues to consider that were raised in an article by the Natural Search Blog:
This is apparently the factory in Google Maps - completely obscured by smoke/clouds. If it's a cloud, odds are pretty good that it won't be there next time. However, if it's smoke from the factory then that would likely be there every time.
There is a good deal of child labor that occurs in Malaysia. You'd want to make sure that this isn't happening at the factory where your ad would be placed.
The ad space will go up in November. Why then? I can't imagine they know when any new satellite photos will be taken. I guess that's just when they'll put up the ad, and then it'll show in GE, GM, VE, etc -- eventually.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, as well as to see how many other companies try the same thing in future months.