The Investigation of Web Mapping Service Applications in Terms of Technical and Performance Ways

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is a data processing system which accepts all objects on the earth as geographic data, and shows these over a numeric platform with its unique methods. GIS has developed rapidly in recent years in parallel with information technologies. Then many institutions especially related with organizing and planning the environments, municipalities, armed forces, tourism agencies, and educators are in an effort to benefit from this data processing system in the highest level. Some companies having the authority in information technologies share their products with their customers via GIS. These products' enriched contents help users explore different places of the earth and new opportunities. In today's world, it is easy to reach many free and paid services from motionless views, navigation, traffic jam, to hotel reservation in the virtual environment (web). But the use of information technologies creates some problems in parallel with its benefits. The leading problem of them is how to use these technologies with the lowest price and the most effective way. In this study, web-based GIS programmes which have developed rapidly especially in the last decade, their performances and qualifications were investigated. In this context, four main web-based map systems' (Google Maps, BingMaps, Yahoo! Maps, OviMaps) online GIS services were examined with some tests in terms of speed, security, reliability, accessibility, and extensibility